We crawled out of bed at 4am Sunday morning, so we could catch the 6:15am ferry to Catalina. Luckily, I managed a whopping 5.5 hours of sleep, so I wasn’t a total zombie (the same could not be said for Jeff).

At the ferry terminal, we met up with Bonnie and Marcia (Mar-see-a, not Marsha) from the Kona Classic. Bonnie lives in Palos Verdes with her diving husband and four (!!) daughters; Marcia is visiting from Brazil, where she also has a diving husband and three children. They met on Bonnie’s honeymoon in Cozumel, and have been friends ever since – Kona is their annual girls-only trip together.

It was an absolutely beautiful day in SoCal. We had sunshine as forecasted, with a nearly cloudless sky; there was just a little bit of a breeze; and most importantly, the ocean conditions at Avalon were smooth and clear. We headed straight to Casino Point, rented tanks and weights, and started setting up camera gear.

At this point, I discovered that my camera battery had run dry – it must have been packed with a button depressed, keeping it on since the night before when I’d recharged it. Oops. I didn’t have any spares packed, so I would be the lone non-photographer for the day.

That actually worked out pretty well, since it left one of us with hands free to help the others get their cameras in and out of the water, keep an eye on the group (it can be tricky diving with more than one buddy in the kelp forests), and model for photos.

The tide was on its way in, so the first entry was a smidge tricky with the water only covering the very last step. I hovered at the entry and played divemaster, since Bonnie and Marcia hadn’t dived here before and weren’t familiar with the entry. We got everyone in the water with their cameras, and headed to the east end of the dive park to pay a visit to the wreck of the Sujac.

It was our lucky day: not only was the visibility pretty darned good, but the water was WARM. Even on the Sujac, which sits in about 80 feet of water, we had a balmy 64 degrees. Jeff and I were in wetsuits for the day, so I appreciated the reprieve from 50-something degree water.

At the Sujac, I posed myself on one side of the swim-through and let anyone who was interested have a crack at taking pictures.

Hovering in the wreck of the Sujac:

We were running out of bottom time as well as air, so we turned around and headed into shallower waters, slowly cruising back towards the entry. It was a little tricky trying to keep three photographers in sight at all times, but I didn’t lose anyone (and even had a great dive myself).

We dawdled away our surface interval chatting and sunning ourselves, and hopped back in for a second dive around 11am. I’d expected the point to be totally packed with divers by now since it was Memorial Day weekend; to my surprise, it seemed slightly less crowded than a typical summer day. I wasn’t complaining.

For the second dive, we stayed in the shallows and pestered garibaldi.

We also spent a little time getting photographs of each other underwater – here are Bonnie and Marcia, looking surprised in their flat masks:

I continued my modeling career, occasionally stopping by something that I thought was pretty and waiting to see if anyone wanted to take my picture.

On this dive, we introduced Bonnie to the garibaldi THUMP, a loud popping sound they make when they try to chase you (or other fish) away from their nests. Good for hours of entertainment, or at least minutes, or however long your conscience will let you harass the poor fish.

Getting out from this dive was more of an adventure than I’d expected from a high tide at Casino Point. The stairs were well covered by water, but there were so many boats zipping around just outside the dive park (holiday weekend) that there was a constant barrage of wake. As soon as Jeff and I approached the stairs, the water became rough and so bubbly you couldn’t see a thing. Jeff somehow managed to struggle up the steps with his camera, but he’s had loads of practice at this. I had a hard enough time removing my fins and scrambling to my feet WITHOUT a camera in hand, so I camped out on the bottom step to help Bonnie and Marcia in. I’m starting to enjoy “playing divemaster” – guess it’s a good thing I’m signing up for the LA County Advanced Diver Program this summer.

We pondered a third dive while we scarfed down lunch at the dockside cafe, but opted to just take it easy instead so we wouldn’t be rushed getting back to the ferry dock by 3:15. We hung out in the sun, photographed the incredible collection of sea birds that were descending on an apparent baitball at the east end of the dive park, and pestered poor passers-by to take our picture:

Jeff was forced to spend the day with three fabulous chicks:

By the time we reached Long Beach, we’d been awake for 13 hours and made 2 fabulous dives. One would think that was enough adventure for one day, but no! We topped it off with an evening at Bonnie’s house for dinner.

Bonnie turns out to have an incredibly cool family in an awesome house. She’s on the hill just looking over the coast in Palos Verdes, but it’s not one of the extravagent mansions in the area – pretty much a typical-sized four-bedroom California house. But it’s VERY distinctive on the inside! She and her spearfisherman husband Mike have created such a great home for their four kids. The walls are covered with a combination of artwork, family photos, kid-art, and Bonnie’s underwater photos; the mantel is lined with clay creations of the girls. An old chocolate lab was huffing and puffing his way around the house, which was clean to my ideal standards: not dirty, but not sparkling, and filled with the natural clutter of six people. I loved it!

Another pair of friends came over for dinner, along with their three kids. After a little movie show in the living room (one of the girls in particular was really excited by all my california videos), we left them to their own devices and retired to the Tiki hut in the backyard. Yes, I said Tiki hut!

Mike had just returned from a fishing trip to Mexico, and the fridge was full of yellowtail tuna. Jeff was delighted to be treated to tuna sashimi on arrival – and I decided if I was ever going to try sushi, it might as well be now. I had a nibble. It had the consistency you think raw fish would have, and tasted like the sauce it was dipped in. I don’t get it.

I had better success with eating fish at dinner: Marcia had prepared a Brazilian dish, which included COOKED shrimp and fish. I ate at first mainly to be polite, and not wanting to miss the opportunity to try something different; turned out I actually liked it!

The conversation at dinner covered spearfishing, real estate, child-rearing techniques, religion, and everything in between – these were definitely my kind of people, with an everything-goes attitude to dinner talk. Jeff’s favorite line of the night: Mike yelling across the yard “Don’t let Bear [the dog] in the house tonight; he’ll have diarrhea!” after Bear consumed several dinner rolls that one of the girls dropped trying to carry an enormous basket of them across the yard. My favorite was actually the line right before that: “Just put the ones the dog hasn’t touched back in the basket – no one will know!” I think we both came away from the evening unable to decide if the visit made us want to have kids sooner, or much later! But we definitely adored everyone we met.

We hit the road at 9pm, while I still had enough energy to drive home without running into oncoming traffic. I was sorry to leave, but I’m sure we’ll be back!