Technical Scuba Diving
I am very honored to be awarded the Winner in the Wreck Category for the 2023 Underwater Photographer of the Year (UPY) contest. The "photo" that won is a screen capture of the final photogrammetry model I built of the F8F-1 Bearcat that sits 230 feet deep off Point Loma, California. To date, there have [...]
Background We have had absolutely horrible conditions since Christmas. Between the large swells, wind, rain and resulting run-off, diving has been non-existintent for weeks. I snuck in a couple dives to teach a photogrammetry class, but that is about it until this week. Dive 1 - 275' Target (South of Pt Loma) Tyler found a [...]
Intro I published a Top 10 Diving Recap in 2020 and then again in 2021. This year I am making it a "Top 10 Dives and Projects" list since quite a bit of my diving this year has been working on more longer-term projects that involve multiple dives on the same wreck. It has been [...]
Intro I first dove the Bearcat back in June 2022 and it is an amazing wreck. It is very rare to find an almost completely intact single engine airplane wreck. When I first dove it, I was concentrating on getting photos for identification and documentation and not for building a photogrammetry model. I was alone [...]
Background It has been quite some time since I have been diving on the A.C.E. wreck (which is a bit crazy since it is probably the closest wreck to my house). For some reason, there was a mid-week trip going to the ACE on Tue, 13 December so I decided to join in with the [...]
Background The Ruby E was the second vessel intentionally sunk off of Mission Beach, San Diego as part of "wreck alley." She was built in 1934 and sank on June 18, 1989 so she has been down for a while. This post will give some history of the ship, pictures from a recent dive, and [...]
I have almost the entire photogrammetry model of the Yukon complete -- in fact, I had it almost complete after dive 5. However, I'm still facing the ongoing problem with the moving seaweed and not being able to align photos for the starboard side hull. Below is the "state of the project" after the "Seaweed [...]
I have quite a few local wreck photogrammetry projects lined up for the end of 2022 and well into 2023. Here is a teaser for one that I started working on after a recent dive. For those who don't recognize this wreck, it is split in two pieces that are separated by quite some distance [...]
Intro / Background This will be a relatively quick post since I did the dive on Dec 2nd and have since done Dive #7 but I wanted to provide a chronological update on my "battle" to build a photogrammetry model of the Yukon. After Dive #5 (The "Butterfly Effect"), I had most of the wreck [...]
Background Steve Lawson had invited me to go looking at targets with him and Chris Gilmartin on the Sunday of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. We set out from the boat launch at Huntington Harbor and had some great conditions that morning. Steve had a list of about 7 or 8 targets he wanted to check [...]