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

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…

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!

Today I got a little present at work in the form of two UPS boxes from California Digital Diving – our Aquatica housing and it’s various accessories have arrived! One box held the housing and the handles. The other (much larger) box contained the dome port, port shade/protector, strobe, sync cord, strobe arms, and various replacement parts, screws, etc.

Unfortunately, what none of the boxes contained was a readable manual. The Aquatica housing came with a very polite note from Aquatica saying that they had not yet printed the manuals, but if I send in the warranty card they’ll send me one when they’re available. The strobe manual was only in Japanese. I was able to figure some things out from the pictures, but I’m not sure enough of anything to risk dunking it in water just yet:

Other than inserting batteries and setting off a few test flashes, I didn’t try to do anything to the strobe. It has various exposed connectors that I imagine need to have things plugged into them before you get it wet. I do like that it makes a distinctive noise when it’s charging up, and has a light that switches from green to pale red to bright red depending on how charged it is. I tucked the strobe back into one of the boxes and started putting together the housing.

First, I attached the handles to the housing. Easy.

Then, I tackled the dome port and shade. This was a little trickier. The dome sits down on a ledge inside the shade, but it didn’t seem very secure, and had no obvious way to attach it. I did notice about a zillion teeny-tiny, headless screws that came as replacement parts with the shade. I looked closer at the shade and noticed it had similar screws set into its circumfernece in four spots – however, there were no matching holes in the plastic of the dome port base. I finally took a big hint from the tiny screwdriver (I forget what they’re called – the hexagonal-ended, L-shaped thingies) taped into the paper wrapping around the dome port, and just started screwing. The screws ate easily through the plastic at the base of the dome port, until they were halfway lodged in the dome port with the remaining half still in the shade. I shook it around a bit by the shade to make sure it was in there solidly, and it seemed to have worked.

To give it a “dry run,” so to speak, you’re supposed to fill it with paper towels (instead of an expensive camera) and soak the whole thing in the bathtub overnight. So I filled it up and snapped these pictures – the dome port does some funny things to the camera flash!

The whole contraption is now happily sitting in the bathtub – hopefully when I check it tomorrow morning, its innards will be nice and dry!

Today, we made our fourth successful Southern California beach dive – and they’ve all been in Laguna. I think I may have finally been convinced of the merits of beach diving (in Laguna anyway – you’re not going to drag me back to Leo Carillo or Old Marineland anytime soon!)

We hit Shaw’s Cove, in Crescent Bay (off Wave Dr, right next to Laguna Sea Sports). Shaw’s was actually the site of my first attempted beach dive back in November ’99 – the first place my scuba class went after the pool. It turned out to be a rather poor choice that day, with monster waves that kicked the bejeezus out of most of us just trying to go in for a skin dive. The instructor eventually called off the SCUBA portion of the day entirely, but not until I’d already been totally put off the idea of beach diving by my bad experience.

Turns out that when conditions are good, Shaw’s is in fact a very pleasant dive. The stairway down to the beach is a little bit longer than Diver’s Cove or Picnic Beach, but not nearly as bad as Marineland, Woods Cove, or a dozen others – in other words, we both found it pretty do-able. At the bottom, there’s a rocky point jutting directly out into the ocean from the right side of the beach; that’s what we planned to follow.

Not that we didn’t have a few hiccups on the way to the dive. First, there are no facilities at Shaw’s Cove, so I dragged poor Jeff on a mini-hike all the way over to Heisler Park for a bathroom stop. Then, I realized I’d forgotten my flat mask and snorkel, and would have to dive with my HydroOptix (not the end of the world, but I prefer to be able to see on the surface when doing beach dives). Then, I remembered that snorkels are mandatory in Laguna, and the lifeguards will turn you around if you don’t have one – so I walked up to the scuba store a few blocks away and rented a pink snorkel for the day. But wearing a snorkel always makes my HO mask leak – so I wound up borrowing Jeff’s old flat mask instead.

We finally suited up a little before 9am, and headed down to the beach. The surf was almost nonexistant; the occasional 1-2 footer just about reached my waist. Much better than the last time I was here! We made it in without incident, and descended near the rocky point.

We headed south until we came to the crack in the rocks known as “the crevice,” one of the main draws of this site. On a low-surf, low-surge day like today, it was easy to go swimming inside the crevice, through some rocky arches and swim-throughs. We saw lots of fish in there (mostly garibaldi), a huge pile of big lobsters hiding out in a crack, Proliferating Anemones (short pink/purple anemones with thin, short, tapered tentacles), chestnut cowries, and several partially-devoured spiny sea stars (by what, I can’t imagine).

Picture of the crevice from California Diving News:

In the middle of poking around in the crevice, we discovered our camera had been accidentally left on “Land mode,” so none of the pics were really coming out. Oh well!

After checking out the crevice, we continued south along the reef. Jeff spotted a sole in the sand, and an octopus curled up into a hole in the rocks. We also saw several obviously-new divers – Shaw’s is a popular place for classes. One guy was compulsively checking his gauges, and so completely unable to notice that I was pointing out a sole directly under him. Some others kicked up enough sand to reduce the 20+ visibility back down to 10-15 – still pretty good for a beach dive!

The biggest surprise to me was the temperature. On our last beach dive, at nearby Picnic Beach, we found it extremely cold at depth – low 50s! But today, it didn’t go below 66 degrees, even down around 40 feet. We were mostly up around 25, in 68 degree water. I could have done without the hood!

We’d definitely like to go back and check it out some more. Maybe we’re finally learning to love beach diving, which would definitely help save us some money! :)

Jeff and I just got back from a beautiful day of diving at Santa Barbara Island. We booked the trip on the Peace boat with California Digital Diving (owned by Ken and Rita Ashman). Ken was kind enough to round up a housing for our Canon digital rebel – apparently, it showed up at his place about an hour before he left for this trip, so it was a close call! We were hoping to check out the Ikelite, which is a bit cheaper, but Ken was only able to get the Aquatica (the main difference is that the Aquatica is metal, while the Ikelite is clear plastic). No complaints! He also loaned us a strobe, and gave us lots of tips and advice before sending us out to play.

We got off to a good start: the seas were surprisingly calm on the whole trip out. It takes about 5 hours to get from Ventura harbor to S.B. island, so the boat leaves at 2am while everyone’s asleep. Usually once the boat starts moving, I barely get any sleep; but this ride was so calm (and the bunks pretty comfy) that I slept straight through til morning.

We woke up at Santa Barbara to sunny skies, flat seas, no currents, and great visibility! Our first stop was at Black Cavern, where Jeff and I just puttered around a plateau in about 50 feet and played with the camera. Unfortunately, the strobe wasn’t working so well – but we did have fun playing with a sea lion who kept coming down to check us out. Back on the boat, Ken swapped out the strobe, and our second dive was in a fabulous kelp forest at a dive site called “The Notch.” Dive #3 was at one of the sea lion rookeries on the island, by Webster point. The visibility here was not so great, but Jeff had a good time trying to get decent pictures of sea lions!

Here are two of my favorites from the trip. Both were taken with the kit lens, which is basically a wide angle (though it can zoom to 50mm). The first is an island kelpfish, about 6 inches long; the second I like because you can get a sense of the kelp forest around the sea lion.

The rest of the pics are here: gallery.laityphoto.com/v/underwater/uw-20040906_santabarbara.