Back from Bonaire! I’ll try to post lots of details in the coming days, but for now, here’s our ReefCam picture:

Wow, what a couple of weeks it’s been! Between being swamped at work, ramping up for our Bonaire trip, and preparing for last night’s Christmas party, I’ve basically been a total basket case (and Jeff has been a total saint putting up with me).

I’ve been baking like a crazy person for the last week, anticipating hordes of hungry people at our party. I think I’m still stuck in college-party mode, and tend to assume that everyone eats like a teenage boy. I tore through two sacks of flour, 2 and a half gigantic things of sugar, and more than 20 eggs in my baking frenzy, winding up with 2 batches of fudge, 2 BIG batches of butter cookies, orange macaroons, three batches of pfeffernuisse, some spritz cookies, 2 batches each of M&M cookies and fudge crinkles, all taking up about 6 cookie tins, 8 plastic containers, and random ziploc bags.

I may have overdone it just a smidge.

Kris and Sarah arrived in town late Saturday night, so they got to join in on the pre-party fun of cleaning the house and setting everything up for the approaching hordes. For those of you not familiar with our annual Christmas festivities (though I don’t imagine anyone who would be reading this in the first place falls into that category), we basically invite everyone we know over for cookies, drinks, snacks, cookie decorating, and ornament painting, all to a soundtrack of my tacky collection of christmas music. It’s always a blast; particuarly watching all our very different friends from different places socialize amongst each other, and usually doing an excellent job of it!

Everything was good to go loooong in advance of anyone actually arriving. The tree was lit; the various types of ornament crafts were laid out in the office; cookies were spread out over the entire dining room table (with all the refill tins stacked underneath); and my sister Katie and her boyfriend Joel finished their drive down from Berkeley with enough time left over to grab a quick nap before the party.

We had a rather different crowd this year: more work friends, fewer college friends – and more kids! We seem to be in that awkard in-between phase of life where we have just enough friends with kids that it’s no longer really an adult party, but not enough friends with kids for the kids to break off into their own social groups. I think it went pretty well anyway, though, and I certainly enjoyed meeting all the kids, and watching them go nuts with cookie and ornament decorating! I was actually kind of jealous of one little girl’s dress: I’ve been DYING to find some sort of tacky, Mrs Santa Claus style outfit to wear to these things, but they don’t seem to make them for grownups (except in the lingerie milieu). Here’s 3-year old Sidney showing off some of her beadwork:

The Negrons and Gelinos both brought their (surprisingly well-behaved) little ones along, as well. Alex Gelino has been getting handed around crowds of admirers since he was about 4 weeks old: here he is moments before spitting up all over Kathy, with Melissa and Christopher on the left:

(Kathy really didn’t mind; any anyway, I have huge piles of spare shirts that are only kind-of-too-big for her, from when I was a bit smaller!)

I flitted around the party like the social butterfly I am, unfortunately not really getting much time to socialize with anyone in particular for very long. But that’s why I’m lucky to have so many friends who are excellent at socializing with each other. :)

One highlight of the evening was forcing Jeff to hold The Baby. Here he is with Alex, in what turned out to actually be a pretty cute picture of Jeff:

And finally, here’s a shot of the Clower ladies with their men: my Jeff and Katie’s Joel.

Thanks to everyone who dropped by – we had a great time! And we’re well stocked with wine now for the next few weeks! :) (We also have quite a few leftover cookies – big surprise – so all you who work with us can expect them to start showing up at the office in the next few days.

Saturday, we went out on the Sea Bass to dive at the oil rig Eureka, several miles off San Pedro. Eureka lies in about 600 feet of water, and is out in the open – which means it tends to be subject to strong swells, wind and currents. There was a bit of a swell running this day, but not too much for the 40-foot Sea Bass to handle. I was a little nervous about how getting on and off might be made tricky by the occasional extra-large rollers that came through, but I never had much trouble. I’m not sure if our timing was just good on all our entries and exits, or if I’ve just improved in the last year of diving (last time we dove the oil rigs, everything about it seemed hard).

Because the boat can’t anchor or tie off to the rig, they have to drop off the divers “live” – that is, the boat keeps running. They’re required to approach from the windward side, to avoid conflicts with the rig work boats, which means that they can wind up being blown towards the rig by wind and current. So the idea is to get the divers off the boat as quickly as possible. Everyone gears up at the same time, sitting on the two benches that line either side of the deck. When everyone looks ready, they’re instructed to put on their fins and masks, and then the boat heads over to the rig. Once the boat stops moving, everyone stands up and giant strides off the back of the boat, one after another (picture paratroopers leaping out of a plane, with someone yelling “go, go, go!” and shoving each one out in turn). The first entry went totally smoothly, I’m sure due to the fact that most of the divers were extremely experienced (8 out of twelve were diving drysuits; 7 with double tanks and stage bottles; 1 with a rebreather).

Exiting the boat:

Once we were in, I was amazed by the clear visibility at the surface. Our first trip to the rigs was during the summer, and there was a 30-foot layer of plankton soup that reduced the visibility to a couple of feet until you got below it (and blocked out most of the sun once you were down). Yesterday, as soon as I stuck my face in the water I could see the oil rig pylons stretching out at least a hundred feet below, and huge schools of topsmelt (thin silver fish) were everywhere. For the most part, they drifted about slowly and aimlessly, scattering every once in a while when one of the resident sea lions would drop down for a snack.

Our first order of business was to find some giant white-plumed anemones (metridium giganteum) for Jeff to photograph. They’re quite common in the pacific northwest, but here they only grow where it’s pretty cold and deep. On the rigs, they first start to appear in ones and twos at about 110 feet. If you look down, you can see larger aggregations 30-40 feet blow, and they completely swamp the rig struts at greater depths (which, frankly, I hope never to see).

Metridium Giganteum:

Jeff shot a couple of metridiums from various angles, while I puttered around and kept an eye on our nitrogen loading. It’s great fun just to be under the oil rig, even if you don’t see anything special. It’s just so amazing to be surrounded by such a feat of engineering – these huge pipes disappearing down in the abyss. It’s also such a weird synthesis of man and nature: every inch of metal is completely encrusted with tiny strawberry anemones, molluscs, and algae, and is home to all kinds of fish that hide in the clutter. I spotted a few rockfish, some greenlings, and a california scorpionfish – and of course, the ever-present schools of topsmelt swirling around the outside of the rig and occasionally through the center. Looking up, you see the sun shining down through the rig’s struts, and silhouettes of sea lions on the surface (and frequently diving down). Looking down, I could see the lights and rising bubbles of the 4 divers working on their required-decompression class, who spent 13 minutes at 145 feet.

My favorite sight on that dive was a sea lion who dived down to about 80 feet, and then slowly worked his way up. He turned somersaults and blew bubbles, then poked at them with his nose, slowly spiraling up towards the surface. Very cool visual. There was also a young sea lion who was quite curious about the camera.

Look at those big brown eyes:

We decided to stay at Eureka for the second dive, since conditions were so nice, even though the swell was picking up a bit. On our second dive, Jeff and I found two baby garibaldis in about 20 feet of water. In their early juvenile stage, they’re frequently more fluorescent blue than orange, and dart around spastically. Of course, the camera chose this moment to give its intermittent “Err 99” message and crash. Argh.

Last pic of the day: an out-of-focus baby garibaldi

We tooled around between 40 and 60 feet of water, drifting into the large schools of fish and just taking in the view. Jeff spotted two cormorants (diving birds) swimming around down there – I missed it! Eventually I had to admit that I was freezing, and Jeff wasn’t able to take pictures anyway, so we called the dive a bit early and headed back onto the boat.

We did a little troubleshooting back on board, and tracked the camera problem down to the sync cable between the strobe and the housing. It looks like the connector at one end had some leakage through the seal, and it must be shorting out or something: it always works for the first part of the day, then starts acting up and eventually dies completely. Luckily, we still have time to replace it before Bonaire!

I was really freezing by this point (the sun never stayed out for long, and it was windy), and feeling seasick to boot, so I decided to sit out the third dive at the Ellie/Ellen oil rigs. Jeff opted to remain behind with me, and we passed the time chatting up the crew.

There was a bit of an incident on the last boat entry of the day. One of the guys wearing doubles was among the first people out of the water, and unfortunately he was about halfway up the ladder when a pretty good-sized swell lifted the boat up and dropped it. The ladder, which isn’t permanently attached but sits on some metal hooks and is held in place by two crew members, lifted up just high enough to hop out of the hooks – and ladder and diver tipped sideways and back off the boat, where other divers were waiting their turns. For a few seconds ,I was positive we’d be ending the day with a call to the coast guard – but amazingly, the guy that was landed on managed to duck underwater, and he escaped with only a tiny scratch on his head. The diver who did the falling was completely confused when he finally did make it on board, and was glad to hear that it had been the ladder that let go, and not him that lost his grip!

The nice thing about diving the oil rigs is that you make it back to harbor so early – we rolled in around 3pm, and were all unpacked and crashing in bed by 5.

Oil platforms Ellie and Ellen, with Eureka in the distance:

More pics here: http://gallery.laityphoto.com/v/underwater/uw-20041120_oilrigs.

Friday night, Jeff and I hooked up with Maggie and Dave from our dive club. After dinner, we all headed up to Santa Barbara to board the Truth dive boat, on a trip to the northern channel Islands. We did a similar trip last year on the Vision, which is run by the same company; compared to that boat, the Truth was a little bit of a letdown, but still very nice by dive boat standards! Jeff and I snuggled up in our bunk, and woke up out on the open ocean heading for Santa Rosa island.

Our first two dive sites were pinnacles off the southeast bit of Santa Rosa. Lots of anemones, starfish, nudibranchs, and rockfish, and very nice visibility. But it was COLD (mid-50s underwater, and low 70s above). During the second dive, it started to rain, so there wasn’t even much sun out to warm us up between dives!

Dive #3 was in a kelpy, rocky area, and I spotted a nudibranch we’d never seen before. But there was a problem: it was in a hole where the camera and strobe couldn’t possibly reach. After a short internal moral debate, I suggested to Jeff that we move the poor little slug. His internal debate didn’t take long either, and he nabbed the poor thing by the tail. It instantly, er, voided itself, and then curled up in a little ball. Jeff tried to place it on top of a rock, but in its pillbug-like state it just rolled away in the surge. I caught in in one hand, and cupped it away from the surge until it uncoiled and started crawling around on my glove. Then we found a lovely red kelp leaf to pose it on, and it cooperatively let itself be transferred. After that, it was a bit of an adventure: I held the kelp still in the surge and fanned away other bits of kelp and floating crud, while Jeff tried to get a good shot.

Judge for yourself if it was worth the trauma inflicted on this innocent Hilton’s Aeolid:

By the end of this dive, I was feeling downright hypothermic and decided to call it quits for the day. Dry clothes and a hot shower never felt so good, mmm…

Two more dives came and went without us, followed by dinner. Then it was time for the night dive, and I could tell Jeff wanted to go. I waffled for a bit, but eventually decided I’d be happier staying warm on deck, and sent him off with a couple of strangers.

For the night dive, the boat crew hung a bright light over the side of the boat, which attracted a huge swarm of plankton. The plankton in turn attracted schools of fish – and then a school of squid! Some other non-divers and I leaned over the side watching the pink-tinged, foot-long critters squirt there way backwards and forwards. Very fun!

Jeff was having fun of his own down below. No squid, but he found this red octopus swimming around:

The next morning, the swell off San Miguel had died down enough for us to go dive Wilson’s Rock. Last year, this was our favorite dive site. This year, it wasn’t quite as great – we did the wall instead of the crevices, and the surge was a bit wild (vertical as well as horizontal), making photography difficult. The high point of the dive for me was spotting three mola molas (sunfish) swimming by! Unfortunately, Jeff only managed to get one so-so shot before they got out of range. Oh well; next time!

Dive #2 was at Foul Area. Funny name, huh? We went there last year, too – apparently, it’s good lobster hunting. We weren’t hunting lobsters. Last year, we dropped down, hit the bottom before we could see it, and almost instantly thumbed the dive (3 foot vis and a barren sea floor, ugh). This year, we decided to stick it out even if it was crummy conditions. We had about 5-7 foot vis this year, and 3-6 foot surge. Jeff and sort of crawled along the bottom, spotting a few starfish, cowries, sea lemons, and small island kelpfish. Not a good dive for photography!

Dive #3 was at Westcott Shoals. It was raining while we got suited up, and I was FROZEN and shivering. The current line was thrown out and was instantly swept outwards, and there were occasional sets of enormous swells rolling through (very long wavelength, so not too nasty on the surface – but would cause very deep surge). The first few divers dropped in and reported so-so visibility. I was shivering uncontrollably now, and decided it just wasn’t worth it; we called the dive.

The divers who went down reported an ok dive that was a lot of work – nasty current, roller-coaster style surge. Can’t say I’m that sorry I missed it. :)

Next year, we’re renting dry suits to do this trip!

More pics here: gallery.laityphoto.com/v/underwater/uw-200411_sanmiguel

Better late than never… I finally have a few minutes to describe my fun-filled Halloween weekend. :)

It was just me for the weekend, since Jeff was in San Francisco for a trade show. Saturday afternoon, I met up with Marianne, Anastasia and some visiting friends of hers for a trip up to Lombardi Ranch in Santa Clarita, a farm where they do a big pumpkin patch/petting zoo/hay rides kind of thing every Halloween.

It was packed. And, I have to say, slightly more fun than I expected! There were thousands of pumpkins laid out on the ground for people to choose from, and kids running around trying to carry pumpkins that were too big for them. In the middle of everything was a huge pile of hay bales you could climb up for a better view. A little tram and several horse-drawn, hay-filled carts offered rides around the outside of the farm. Sunflower fields bounded two sides of the place (the sunflowers were rather past their prime, though), there was the promised petting zoo (with a baby llama!), caramel apples, corn on the cob, etc. Quite a place! It’s probably slightly more fun with kids of your own. We skulked around with telephoto lenses, trying to take pictures of other people’s cute kids while trying not to look like creepy stalkers.

It also really made my day when I spotted a tiny Boba Fett among the pumpkins:

I would definitely go back next year – especially if I can convince some of our kid-laden friends to come along.

Sunday, I mostly took it easy – puttered around, went and swam my daily laps, fiddled with my laptop. In the evening, I went up to Michelle’s beautiful house in the “Bungalow Heaven” neighborhood of Pasadena – seriously, I never get sick of visiting her place! She goes nuts for Halloween (kind of the equivalent of me for Christmas). The house, which already has a very autumnal color scheme inside, was totally decked out with harvesty and halloweeny decorations; she got fires going in the living room and out back (nice outdoor fireplace and sitting area), made pumpkin pie, spread Halloween children’s book all around the house (note: Michelle has no children; she just likes children’s books!), and invited a few people over to hang out for the evening. It was mostly friends from her Renaissance Fair group, but I make friends pretty quickly and felt right at home. :)

One guy, Jeff, brought over a “Fairy Tale Pumpkin” to carve. Picture a normal pumpkin. Now make it a deeper, darker shade of orange. Make the bulges MUCH bulgier in all dimensions, and the creases MUCH deeper, and voila: fairy tale pumpkin. It really did look quite cool – especially after Jeff tipped it up on its side and carved a wicked little face on it.

After dinner, we took turns walking around Michelle’s neighborhood. One block to the west of Michelle is The Place to Be on Halloween. Almost every house on that street goes nuts, and I mean really nuts with the decorations – full-blown haunted house kind of stuff, often with music, fancy lights, sound effects, etc. And more jack-o-lanterns than I’ve seen in years! Kids get trucked in from all over Los Angeles to this area; the sidewalks were downright crowded. I felt like I was at an amusement park instead of walking around a normal neighborhood! The cutest costume was a little kid dressed up like Max from Where the Wild Things Are, with the white furry suit, black tail, and crown. There were also quite a few tiny Spidermen.

Michelle was a big hit with parents and kids alike: she decked herself out in her Jedi costume and carried around a very authentic looking/sounding light saber. There were a lot of muttered “Star Wars!” exclamations in her wake. Here’s a picture of the costume taken a few months ago (and no, the light saber is NOT photoshopped, except at the very tip where it overlapped some door frame):

So today, I gave my first oral presentation since college. It was at ADASS 2004, an astronomical software conference being held here in Pasadena. My talk was actually a ‘focus session,’ which meant I had a little more time than normal “talks” but a much smaller audience. The focus sessions take place in between the main sessions, and they were also supposed to take place in a smaller room hidden away in the basement. The point of my talk was to demonstrate how to use Montage, software to create astronomical mosaics, and talk a little about how it’s being used for actual science.

Last night, I made Jeff come to IPAC and watch me rehearse my presentation in the small conference room, where I could play with a projector and laser pointer. By the end of the evening, I felt pretty confident that I could deliver my talk without speaking too fast or twisting up my sentences, and comfortable with the thought of talking in a small room to a few people.

So first thing this morning, they announce that the focus sessions have been moved into the main talk venue. This room holds about 250 people, has a big chandelier blocking part of the screen, and you have to use a finicky lavolier microphone. Eek!

My talk was at lunch, though, so I didn’t have too many attendees – maybe 30. I didn’t stumble or talk too fast, I finished in plenty of time, answered all the questions (and there were lots – people were actually listening), and only had a little bit of trouble with my hair brushing noisily against the microphone.

So the upshot is, my first post-college presentation went great. Got a big pat on the back from my boss and fellow Montage colleagues, and several people assured me I was animated and intelligible. Nice.

As for the rest of the conference…

It turns out that the academic equivalent of “So, when are you getting married/having kids” is: “So, when are you going back to get your PhD?” Awithout exception, the topic of graduate school has come up with all the new people I’ve been met at ADASS (and I didn’t bring it up). Several people have even gone so far as to point out that there’s really only so much I can do with only a bachelor’s. One implied that without a PhD, the work I was doing would eventually get boring and I wouldn’t have any options, because I wouldn’t be one of the people coming up with new ideas to implement, but would just be stuck implementing other people’s ideas.

Huh?

First, it feel like kind of a personal question, especially from people I’ve just met.

Second, I do pretty much the same type of work as the people in my department with PhDs. So I haven’t come up with any revolutionary ideas yet, but HELLO, I’ve only got 2 years of experience at this. Most of my colleagues have greater than 10 years, and I’m pretty sure that’s where they get their authority from, not their PhDs.

At my next conference, I’m going to write “DON’T ASK ME ABOUT GRAD SCHOOL” on my forehead.

Unfortunately, our day trip to Catalina (scheduled specifically to practice using the new camera housing) got off to an unfortunate start. While on the boat, we decided to check the menu settings on the camera – but when we turned it on, nothing happened. The battery appeared to have been drained somehow overnight (it’s still a mystery how, as auto-power-off was set to 2 minutes – perhaps it was left lying on a button such that it kept turning itself back on?). And of course, we hadn’t packed the charger! Jeff tried unsuccessfully to find a replacement battery and/or charger once we reached the island, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

I decided to look on the bright side: if we didn’t have the camera along, we were SURE to see something really, really cool!

For our first dive, we headed west along the reef. I was peeking into holes with my light, and spotted some reflective little circular things – which then moved, as they were the bottom of an octopus tentacle! Thrilled with my find (the first octopus I’d spotted without help), I waved Jeff over, and then spotted the rest of the octopus farther back in the hole. Sadly, he was not inclined to perform for us (changing colors or moving rocks), though I did see his eye apparently open and close several times.

We continued west until we hit the wreck of the Sujac, at the far end of the park. The only time I’d been there before was during my advanced diving course, on our way to 100′ for the required deep dive. That day, the visibility was such that I didn’t see anything until we were right on top of it, and then all I saw was a bit of hull with a hole in it that we swam through. Yesterday, the vis was at least 40′, and you could see the whole wreck at once. It’s lying on a steep slope, with the top in about 55′ and the bottom down around 90′. At 70′ in the shade of the wreck, we hit a nasty thermocline – brrr! We swam through the hole, and tooled around a bit. It’s a very cool spot, that we’ll have to visit again with a working camera.

Heading back east towards the stairs, Jeff scared up a few giant kelpfish and another octopus.

After our first dive, we grabbed lunch at the Dockside Cafe (diet be damned!) and then hung out watching all the dive classes to while away our surface interval. It was alternately comical and scary to see how much trouble new divers have on the stairs getting in and out of the water, and how much chaos and stair-blockage can ensue! We waited until the crowd on the stairs had cleared a bit, and headed in for our second dive.

This time, we were after the sailboat wreck in 60′ of sand (straight out from the stairs). I’d been to a sailboat once before (in my certification classes), and Jeff claimed it was right next to the glass-bottom boat, which we’ve found on our own several times. Usually, the vis out over the sand is such that we only manage to stumble upon one wreck, and never spotted it’s mates – turns out there are a total of three wrecks. First we found the nameless sailboat, standing by itself: this was the one that I remember seeing in my class (and in fact, Jeff may have swam to it before and thought it was the glass-bottom boat in the murk).

Nameless sailboat – photo by Chris Menjou

I noticed another boat off at the edge of my visibility to the west, and we swam over to it: the glass-bottom boat. I thought it was odd that the two were so far apart, since the map showed them touching – and then I spotted a second sailboat on the other side of the glass-bottom boat. Maybe the last time I was there I thought it was all pieces of one boat? Or maybe stuff has moved around (the wrecks do get moved by storms). Anyway, we were pretty happy to have found all four of the in-park wrecks in one day.

We saw some interesting sheephead feeding behavior by the wrecks; a female sheephead was scooping out a huge hole in the sand with her mouth, filtering through each mouthful for food. Mmm, tasty sand.

Back at the reef, we saw more of the usual suspects – and then something new: a really, really juvenile garibaldi! When they’re super-juvenile, they’re almost more blue than orange, and tiny! Very cool – here’s another picture not taken by us of a baby garibaldi:

Juv. Garibaldi – photo by Reeveseye (Scubaboard)

Moments after spotting the garibaldi, Jeff started making enthusastic pointing motions at something else – a small ray went cruising past us! It wasn’t a bat ray, or any other kind we’ve seen before – we’re not sure which one it is, though I don’t think it was the electric torpedo ray (didn’t have spots). Probably a round sting ray. Anyway, it swam right by us without stopping, so we didn’t get too close a look.

We were done diving for the day by 2:30 – and not slated to leave the island until 6:30. We dropped our bags off at the ferry terminal and started poking around the shops in Avalon, which is entertaining to do about once a year (just long enough to forget you’ve already seen the exact same knick-knacks). We finally picked up some reading material at a bookstore to help kill the time. I nabbed Mary Roach’s “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers,” which turned out to be a fantastic read; I highly recommend it!

All in all, a good day of diving, if not a good day for pictures. :( At least we learned a valuable lesson about carrying extra batteries and chargers along…

I was just digging around in my gallery… here’s one for Ben and Kathy:

No making fun of my dress (or my sister’s dress).

Feel free to make fun of the boys, however. :)

We spent today at Catalina on the Cee Ray. When we crawled into our “double” bunk last night, I remembered why I’m not a huge fan of this boat! There are 4 double bunks, and they aren’t, really: at the feet, they’re the same width as a single, and they widen to about 1.5 times that at the head. Comfy.

It was a pretty rough ride out; for the first time, I thought I might actually wind up hanging over the rail. We had 3-4 foot swell all the way out to Catalina. The plan was to dive Farnsworth, on the far side of Catalina, but our captain took one peek at the conditions on the other side of the island and turned the boat around to stay on the lee side. Smart move!

We had some great dives anyway, at Eagle Reef and Doctor’s Cove. Eagle Reef may be my new favorite Catalina dive site: it’s basically series of huge piles of rocks, covered with kelp and lots of fish. Since it’s actually made up of distinct boulders, there are lots of nooks and crannies to go poking around in, and I scared up quite a few lobsters and shrimp. Mostly, I enjoyed the fish-watching. There were huge schools of baitfish (anchovy, topsmelt, sardines) darting all over the place. We also saw all the usual suspects: sheephead (I saw some fighting each other, mouth-to-mouth), garibaldi chasing away intruding fish, senoritas who darted at their reflection in Jeff’s dome port, juvenile kelp bass that would drift right up to your mask, the pretty blue-and-yellow juvenile blacksmith, rock wrasse and opaleye. And of course, the rocks were littered with bluebanded gobies, one of my favorite fish.

Jeff puttered around getting some practice in with the camera, while I settled in for 45 minutes of fish-watching (with occasional breaks for Jeff-watching). Visibility was great, and the water was warm – great place for 2 long dives!

Our second site of the day was Doctor’s Cove. Not quite as nice: a shallow kelp forest next to lots of sand. We didn’t find anything too exciting in the kelp, but on both of our dives we ran into bat rays out in the sand, munching around in it to dig up food. Each time, the ray was swarmed by other fish trying to get some leftovers. We also scared up a couple of soles in the sand and chased them around for a while, and several times ALMOST managed to get a picture of a giant kelpfish – unfortunately, when you play hide and seek with a kelpfish IN THE KELP, you’re bound to lose.

It’s a good thing I had some Drammamine left: if we thought the ride out was rough, the ride back was even worse! The wind and waves kicked up quite a bit while we were parked at Doctor’s Cove. We were right at the northwest tip of the island, and could see around the corner where the whitecaps were really picking up. As the boat headed for home, I popped a pill and went to try to sleep through the worst of it. Luckily, I succeeded, but woke in time to enjoy some of the “smaller” 6-8 foot swell as we surfed our way back towards the harbor. Our bunk was up in the bow next to the outside bulkhead, where we could hear something (the bilge? Water tank? Sewer system?) sloshing around every time the boat rocked. And lying on your side was impossible; you got knocked back and forth so much that lying flat on your back was the only option.

I felt fine – yay for Drammamine!

Pics for this dive are here: http://gallery.laityphoto.com/v/underwater/uw-20040919_catalina.

We spent the afternoon in Pasadena. First, Jeff and I grabbed lunch at Corner Bakery. When I sat down, I noticed Ben and Kathy’s friends Sam and Dan sitting at the table next to me. I think I’ve met them once in person, but it was some time ago – mostly, I recognized her because I occasionally read her blog (which is linked from both of the Brantleys’ sites). I wasn’t sure I should say anything in case it was a little weird (“Hi, you don’t really know me, but I read your journal…”). At some point, we made eye contact – and I could tell she recognized me as well.

So I said something like “Hey, aren’t you Sam.. Ben and Kathy’s friend? I’m Anastasia; I think we’ve met once. And I read your blog.”

To which she immediately replied: “Oh yeah – you have the underwater pictures on your site. I look at them some mornings when I get into work. And I’ve also looked at your wedding pictures.”

I find it funny that we both kind of know each other, even though we’ve barely met. Gotta love the internet. :)

After lunch, Jeff and I played in the pool with the new camera housing. Ben came to join us and practice his freediving (which he’s getting pretty good at). Jeff took several incredibly unflattering pictures of me, including this one which is nonetheless kind of cool:

And here’s Ben crawling along the bottom of the pool, as he tries to extend his freediving time past a whole minute:

I was completely wiped out after playing in the pool, which surprised me because we really did very little in the way of diving. But I guess we still had to lug all our equipment in and lug it back out, which is half the battle. And it’s just as well I’m tired; it’ll make it easier to sleep on a boat tonight. :) Tomorrow, hopefully, we’ll get to dive at Farnsworth Bank and take some real pictures!