You
could call it a case of beauty and the beast. Above water the oil
rigs that dot the waters off California are considered a blight on
the coastline - but underwater, they are a diver's delight. I have
had the great fortune not only of making half a dozen dives on four
different rigs but touring one of the largest topside. All this has
given me a great respect for what may be a necessary evil.
First, a caveat: You must have permission to dive a rig. And, permission is not likely to be granted to individual boat owners. For liability reasons, oil companies prefer to work with charter dive boats that have safely dived their rigs in the past. Your best bet is to book a trip on a boat with a scheduled rig dive. (The past two years, the Peace has dived Oil Platform Grace on Northern Channel Islands Chamber Day in September.) Check the Scuba Calendar in the back of this publication for such a trip. If you're a member of a group that charters a boat, ask its owner/captain to get permission.
Rig diving is very different from island diving. The water is too deep for anchoring and boats are rarely allowed to tie up to a rig, thus divers are generally dropped off and picked up in a procedure known as "live-boating". The Peace, for instance, pulls close to the rig and the divers jump off the bow one by one and swim to it, descending when they are inside the structure. At the end of the dive, the boat waits until divers surface inside the rig, then backs as close as possible to the rig, cuts its engines and lets the divers board.
Because
this is not diving as usual, it is extremely important to follow the
directions given by the crew when you dive a rig. Currents and surge
are often encountered and diving from a live-boat always requires
caution.
All that said, let me tell you the two big reasons why rig diving is so special. First, the rigs are in the open ocean, in hundreds of feet of water, so you may see pelagics you won't see close to the islands. Divers have encountered mola molas and jelly fish and there's always the chance of cetaceans passing by. My last dive on Grace, off Ventura, resulted in photos of a comb jelly, an animal I had never before seen in 26 years of diving Southern California.
While encounters of the pelagic kind aren't guaranteed, those of a macro nature are. The beams that support the rigs are covered with marine life: Corynactis, Metridiums and aggregating anemones, hydroids, brittlestars, bryozoans, crabs, uncommon nudibranchs, sponges, featherduster worms and tunicates. Mollusks such as mussels, jewel boxes and scallops are abundant.
There are layers upon layers of marine life. And, what grows where depends on the depth of the water. Thus, you'll see clubbed tipped anemones near the surface; Metridiums won't start to appear until you get deeper. (Monitor your gauges carefully; it is easy to go deeper than you planned.)
When the visibility is good and the sun is out, wide-angle photos of the rigs are dramatic. Fish school in the protection of the beams and sunlight sparkles down through them. Use a strobe to bring out the colors of the life that clings to the beams and the result is magical. (Sorry, readers, I tend to get carried away when discussing this subject!)
Most people see just one side of the oil rigs - the topside beast; only a select few get to see the beauty underwater. And that, of course, is why we dive.
Bonnie Cardone is a long-time fixture in the California diving community. She is past editor of Skin Diver Magazine and the 1999 recipient of the California Scuba Service Award.
