Last Sunday, we took the Great Escape out to Santa Barbara Island. We boarded the night before, sharing a stateroom with our buddy Bonnie – which made for a “slumber party” atmosphere (poor Jeff). The boat left the dock around 1am, and we slept sort of fitfully as we made our way across the swells.

Half the time when you sign up to go to SBI, you wake up at Catalina because the conditions were too rough to make it. So I was both excited and annoyed when the divemasters pounded on our stateroom door at 6:30am yelling that we had 30 minutes to get in the water. Yay, we’re at Santa Barbara… but 30 minutes? Rushing into the water? Barely awake divers? That could definitely be a recipe for disaster.

The boat being only half-full (Suberbowl Sunday kept a lot of folks away) meant there was plenty of room on the dive deck, which made the rush to get wet a bit easier. Groups of sea lions frolicking around the boat helped speed us on, too! Our threesome plopped into the water by 7am, and we dropped down to a sandy area between ridges to wait and see who would show up to play. I was borrowing Lars’s hi-def camera again, this time with his Ikelite housing so I had full access to all controls, and a removable red filter.

I was quite happy to be doing a dive that basically entailed sitting still and letting things come to you, since the new camera was plenty of task loading already. Diving in a threesome is hard enough; diving in a threesome and covering ground makes for lots of lost buddy situations.

The visibility was amazing, and the heavy sand out at Santa Barbara Island meant that even if you (or the sea lions) kicked it up a bit, it settled quickly without mucking up the vis. I’ve never seen such a good combination of cooperative pinnipeds and clear water. Everyone had a good enough time at the first dive site that we stayed put for dive #2, dropping back in the water around 9am.

For dive #2, we camped out in the sand next to the edge of the kelp forest, and watched sea lions scare away schools of senorita. But out in the sand was where the sea lions really liked to play, both with each other and with us. We wound up forming a wide circle with each other, everyone getting photos of sea lions pestering everyone else.

This dive was also when we saw the largest number of juveniles. There is just nothing cuter than a baby sea lion, with their big puppy eyes and enormous whiskers.

When we surfaced, we realized we’d drifted a bit with the current. Normally, surface swims pretty much suck – but they’re a lot more fun when you have an escort of sea lions the whole way back!

We moved over to another site for our last dive of the day, but the sea lions still didn’t desert us. This was my 300th dive, as shown in my previous post, and a pretty pleasant way to spend it. Although I did have an embarrassing incident where my fin strap came undone – and at my current weight, my drysuit is so tight at the hips that I can’t bend over properly to put it back on! Jeff had to do it for me.

Everyone was out of the water by noon, and the boat started back to shore while the cook served lunch. I talked to some friends the next day who were supposed to go out to SBI on another boat, but bailed when they learned the plan was to just cram in 3 dives at one site for nothing but sea lions. It’s true that sometimes that can really suck – if the vis is poor, or the sea lions don’t show, those sites can be mighty boring. But we really had a great time, even just doing 3 almost-identical dives.

How can you not have fun with these guys?

More pics at the Santa Barbara gallery – and I’ll put together a video soon!