I dove my first oil rig, Grace, on Wed. It sits in about 300 feet of water a few miles from Santa Cruz Island, Channel Islands. The captain of the Peace dive boat said it was one of his best trips ever. Very calm currents and great viz. We got three dives in. I dropped down to 50 feet on the first dive and was overwelmed by color. It is a nice place for both macro and wide angle.
The pictures don't do it justice as all the columns are totally encrusted with vibrant and colorful stuff competing for space.
Encrusted column.
Diver picking scallops.
Diver
Another column.
Macro.
Nice shots Will! It was a pleasure meeting you and sort of diving with you (we had two groups). I'll try to get a few of my shots up soon.
Jack
I love that first shot Will! Back in the 90's I was involved in the preliminary engineering to remove platform Grace for Chevron. Good thing they didn't go through with that, eh?
Part of the environmental community in California wants the "rigs" removed - but with life like this being the victims of that - is it such a good idea?
Cheers
James
PS. it doesn't look like you are getting very good performance out of your dome port - you have very soft edges softening about 30% of the image.
EXIF Data for the images of the diver with yellow fins shows f3.2 at 1/160th. That probably explains the soft corners. Maybe try f8 at a much slow shutter speed.
Sure looked like a nice day of diving.
Clinton
Will, it looks like you had a wonderful day diving Grace. The vis there was awsome for you. I've never been able to see from one support to the next.
These trips to the rigs are the only time my wife gets the camera. I am a scallop hound. I'll buy my fishing licence just for one day of the year to take my limit of huge scallops out there. They are soooo good! Did you forget the camera for one dive and grab a few for yourself?
I thought that scallop taking was verboten on the oil rigs? Every boat I've taken out there tells us not to touch them. (Not that I'm a hunter.) Has this changed?
I thought that scallop taking was verboten on the oil rigs? Every boat I've taken out there tells us not to touch them. (Not that I'm a hunter.) Has this changed?
When I visited Grace aboard the Peace Boat a couple of years ago, half of the boat were there for scallops. The prohibition is also odd since I thought the oil companys pay big bucks to have the support structure periodically cleaned to reduce weight. Which boat were you on that prohibited fishing?
We were able to take scallops on both "Holly" from the Truth out of SB and "Grace" on the Peace out of Ventura for Chamber day supporting the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. They did tell us that they periodically clean the frame for reasons mentioned earlier, but maybe just deeper, because there was life a plenty and big scallops that grow about 1 inch diameter per year.
One thing of interest I wonder if you have ever heard...On Holly, or was it Grace?, they did not allow us to use a flash! The oil company claimed that their underwater sensors would pick up the strobe flash as a fire and send the whole rig into shut-down. Very curious?
It must be Holly since I KNOW that I used a flash on Grace.
There's no game taking on the E rigs, Eureka, Ellen, Elly, S of San Pedro. You can take game and use strobes on Grace. No strobes on Holly? that's bizzare. Never been up there.
I have done Grace many times and just did Eureka for the first time. The bait there is amazing, worth doing. You would not think there would be a big difference between rigs, but there is between those two.
