Recreation / San Diego : Enjoying the Sights Down Under : Scuba Divers Have Several Choice Spots to Dive on Coastline

Imagine swimming next to a 30-foot, 20-ton gray whale. Then imagine tumbling into a canyon six times as large as the Grand Canyon.

Scuba divers along the San Diego County coast can do both.

Robert vonMaier, 26, an instructor at the Diving Locker in Pacific Beach, has made more than 2,000 dives in every part of the world since he learned the sport in Lake Erie 13 years ago.

“Some of the most exciting diving I have ever done has been right off the coast of San Diego,” vonMaier said. “Maybe because I have done most of my diving here, so the percentage of coming up with exciting dives would come up more, but the most exciting and wild ones have been right here. It’s year-round diving.”

VonMaier has talked with instructors who have dived with their students as whales passed.

“They were 15 to 20 feet from the whales,” vonMaier said. “There was a mother and a calf, just cruisin’ by, watching the divers. They were incredibly graceful and beautiful.”

Another worthy spot is the submarine canyon off La Jolla, near the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

“The first time I saw it was a trip,” vonMaier said. “I was 15 and it was a rush. Ledges go for about 40 feet, then drop three or four feet, then goes on, and drops, etc. It’s like a set of stairs; flat, drop, flat . . . it just keeps going all the way out to about 6,000 feet. Some of the drops are eight to 10 feet, which doesn’t seem like much up here in the terrestrial world but down in the ocean that’s a hell of a lot.

“Imagine taking five or six Grand Canyons and filling them up with water. That would still fit in the La Jolla submarine canyon. You can stand on the edge of the ledge, inflate your buoyancy control vest so that you have a little bit of air where you are negatively buoyant and drop real slow. You look over the edge and just fall, like sky diving in slow motion. That’s a trip.”

Richard Doane, who learned to dive six years ago in Seattle, has been diving off San Diego’s coastline the past three years.

“Off the Washington coast there’s a immediate drop but here the bottom goes on forever and that makes it easy to see all the life, like eels living in holes in the sand,” he said.

Even before vonMaier could read, he remembers looking at books by Jacques Cousteau in the library. He would marvel at the underwater pictures. That little bit of mystery, he said, is what attracts people to scuba diving.

“It’s a world many people are not familiar with,” vonMaier said. “Things are under there that people aren’t sure about. I usually dive to 80 or 100 feet. It’s a little bit frightening, and it’s like you’re living on the edge for a while. It’s adventuresome, and I think everybody has that in them.”

However, before one can explore the kelp forests, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, octopus, guitar fish, sting rays and sharks off the San Diego coast, there is a lot to learn about scuba diving.

The most important rule--never dive alone. That way, you always have another diver to help in an emergency.

Another rule of diving is to maintain control at all times.

He once dived with a man who claimed he was an “expert diver.” When they reached the bottom the man grabbed vonMaier and shook him.

“I had no indication of what he wanted to do,” vonMaier said. “He had big eyes. I was trying to get him under control and I didn’t know that he had released his weight belt and mine. He had his hands on my B.C. hose (which inflates the buoyancy control vest) and me, and he wanted me to get to the surface with him fast.”

They hit the surface like a cork.

“We both almost had an overexpansion injury,” vonMaier said. “He blamed it on his equipment and asked if I would sue. I said, ‘See you later, clown. Get the hell out of my life and don’t come back to the San Diego coastline.’ ”

Overexpansion injuries occur when the oxygen in the lungs expands as the diver ascends. He remembered another story that illustrates the dangers of diving.

A father and his son were diving when the son’s tank became empty. The son, instead of grabbing the secondary hose from his father’s tank, grabbed his father’s primary hose and panicked.

“Both were found dead at 270 feet,” vonMaier said. “The son had the primary hose from his father’s tank still in his mouth. Both had their lungs full of water and had been dead for about two days.”

You need to know your equipment. Most of the knowledge is drilled into the beginning diver in the six-week course needed for a diving certificate.

Only the primary hose goes over the diver’s right shoulder. The other hoses, the safe second (or octopus), pressure gauge and inflater hose for the B.C., all go over the diver’s left shoulder. Also, the weight belt is the only belt that can be unattached with the diver’s right hand. The belts for the buoyancy control vest are unattached with the left hand. In an emergency, the diver can snap off the weight with the right hand and know that, if needed, the safe second for his friend is over his left shoulder.

Another vonMaier rule deals with picking things up in the ocean.

“I don’t do it,” he said. “How would you like it if someone came up to you, picked you up, looked at you and said, ‘Wow, look at this,’ then put you down back on a freeway, or somewhere you’ve never been? You wouldn’t like that. That happens all the time.”

SCUBA DIVING EQUIPMENT

MASK--The mask should provide clear vision under water, protect the face and eyes from irritants, keep water out of the nose and provide some thermal protection from cold water. Fit is most important to obtain maximum security and comfort. Costs range from $21 to $130.

SNORKEL--The snorkel is used with the mask. It enables the diver to breathe while operating on the surface without having to lift his head out of the water, allows the diver to conserve the air in his cylinder by using the snorkel for the surface swim to the dive site and lets the diver operate on the surface with little effort to survey the area surrounding the dive site. Costs range from $13 to $35.

FINS--Fins provide 100% of the forward propulsion for the diver because one’s hands are restricted by the cylinder straps and because the hands are needed for the operation of other scuba equipment. Fins must provide sufficient power to compensate for the added drag of the diving equipment, provide efficient, relatively effortless propulsion for covering great distances with low energy output and adapt to different kicking techniques (modified flutter kick, modified scissor kick and dolphin) to provide variation in muscle use. Costs range from $27 to $62.

BOOTS--Boots cushion and protect the foot against chafing, cold and abrasion as the fin is powered back and forth through the water. They are manufactured in shoe size and vary in thickness for warmth and protection. Costs range from $25 to $50.

GLOVES--Proper fit is important for comfort, dexterity and warmth. Cloth gloves are used in warm dives, while Nylon II or neoprene gloves provide more protection against cold and abrasions. Costs range from $23 to $45.

BUOYANCY SAFETY VEST (BSV)--This vest is a form of flotation device for skin divers. It provides surface flotation for the tired diver in emergency situations and for rest in between dives. The BSV should be brightly colored for easy identification on the surface, should have sufficient lift to support the diver, have a manual inflation device for easy inflation at the surface, be made of heavy gauge fabric for duration and have an adjustable harness system for comfort. Costs ranges from $60 to $100.

BUOYANCY CONTROL VEST--This jacket allows unrestricted underwater movement and keeps the scuba diver in a “neutral” state while underwater. Air can be pumped into the jacket manually or by touching a button, and can be released by pulling a cord or touching another button. The B.C. (as it is called) allows the diver to slowly ascend and descend. Prices range from $200 to $400.

WET SUIT--Warmth at depths is the main reason for wearing a wet suit. It should fit a bit big on the surface because under water it will shrink a little on the body. Instructor Robert vonMaier at the Diving Locker suggests that people stick with green and blue wet suits because “trendy colors turn hideous colors after only 10 dives.” Prices range from $200 to $400 and up.

WEIGHT BELT--Used in addition to the stabilizing jacket for buoyancy, vonMaier said that a diver should take 10% of his weight and add six pounds for the correct amount of weight to put on the belt. In a surge under water, the belt will help keep the diver still. Costs range from $15 to $32.

GAUGES--The submersible gauge measures the amount of air remaining in the diver’s air cylinder. They range from $70 to $92. The depth gauge measures how deep the diver has gone and ranges from $64 to $81.

REGULATOR--This instrument connects the air in the cylinder, through a special flow hose, to the diver’s mouth. Costs range from $180 to $240.

AIR TANK--Attached to the diver’s buoyancy control vest, cylinders vary in volume of cubic feet of air they hold. Cylinders range from $135 to $220.