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