An article by Carl and Eric…
When you start planning to go cruising you seek advice from professionals, friends, newsletters, articles and any other resource you can find. You gather all of the information then you distill it into a plan, find that you need a 100’ boat to store all the things you think you need, refine the plans and set-out to implement the plans hoping that you can get it done before you are too old to leave.
Many of your friends will often ask, “What will you do all day”. Or there is the other question, “what is it like?” There are many answers to these questions but perhaps Carl said it best when he tells people “cruising is nothing more than boat maintenance in exotic places.” But then he is forced to mention all of the people he has met and the places he has explored.
Since a cruising sailboat spends most of its time surrounded by water and one of the places to explore is underneath the surface of that water. One of the major activities that cruising sailors participate in is snorkeling and diving, Like many people Carl and Karen Strange decided to outfit their boat for these activities. Of course little did Karen know that the simple plan of outfitting a boat for some leisure time activities and some less leisurely chares would get out of hand.
Their initial requirements sounded simple enough, they wanted to outfit their boat for diving in the Caribbean with enough air to make a number of dives without having to find a shore-side dive shop after every dive. They did not want anything fancy but wanted things to work without much maintenance. Since that initial outfitting they found some things worked and others did not perform as they had intended.
Because you are spending much of your time sitting on in beautiful blue waters it makes sense to be a certified scuba diver. Getting certified is relatively painless and is easier than the Celestial Navigation course you just completed. Since you will be primarily be diving without the assistance of a dive master or other dive leader, it pays to take a more thorough course rather than the weekend wonder courses offered by some instructors. Remember you are going to be diving almost every day so taking a course that give you a form base and instills confidence will pay off in the long run.
Other than getting your Open Water Certification you may find some other specialties helpful, especially:
- A Rescue course, since you will be in charge and not a Dive Master;
- A Search and Recovery course, to assist you in recovering those items that tumble off the boat;
- An Underwater Navigation course, to assist you in getting back to your home; and
- An Equipment Maintenance course since you will need to know how to make field repairs.
These courses will give you some basic skills that will come into play on your cruise but they will also give you more confidence in your own diving abilities.
Carl points out that “your first priority should be to establish a relationship with a good dive shop. Tell them what your plans are, listen to their recommendations and decide if they seem interested in your adventure and are capable of providing you with long-range support for the next several years. It helps if the staff have experience in helping and can reliably provide far-flung support to cruisers.” Now this is where the fun begins.
Recently, I was onboard the Gallant Lady, a 116′ dive yacht. The exciting ‘Orcas and Mobulas’ trip traverses the southern Sea of Cortez in the vicinity of La Paz, visiting Cerralvo Island to the east of La Paz, Espiritu Santo Island which is close and to the north of La Paz and San Francisco and San Jose Islands further north. The format for this excursion is for the boat to cruise around between the islands and the mainland looking for whales, orcas, and schools of mobula rays. And of course making visits to each of the sea lion colonies in this portion of Baja California, which some claim to be the highlight of any trip to these parts because sea lions enjoy the presence of divers and will goof around and pose for the enjoyment of their guests.
This portion of Baja California is very arid with little rainfall, meaning that rock exposures are plentiful and commonly in the form of sheer cliffs rising out of the sea. Most of the area consists of intrusive basalts (meaning they did not erupt on the surface) that tend to be dark gray or brownish and massive (meaning they lack detail). Basalts in general are oceanic in origin because they originate in the mantle (below the continents). We can tell this because they lack silica (such as quartz which is silica dioxide) which only occurs within continental landmasses.
There were also some extrusive (meaning they erupted) ash and lava flows. This was clearly seen on the northern portion of Espirito Santo Island when we visited a sea lion colony called La Reina. Here the lowest unit (that we could see at sea level) was a light-colored ash that was covered (unconformably) by a thinnish dark brown lava flow followed by a reddish-brown lava flow, then a soil zone (seen as a thinnish light red and white layer) which was in turn covered by a massive grayish lava flow.
The only sedimentary rocks were seen on the mainland coast to the east of La Paz (across from Cerralvo Island) where recent sandstones have been uplifted from the sea due to the tectonic movement of Baja California to the northwest, angling obliquely away from the Mexico mainland. These sandstones show clear layering indicating how they were deposited. The layers sometimes change dip and truncate one another which reveal changes in flow direction. Units like this can be deposited by streams and rivers (called ‘fluvial deposits’) but these sandstones were deposited offshore when sediments carried by these rivers flowed into the sea and were dispersed.
