My foot was killing me when I first got out of bed, but it seemed to get better after some walking around – and of course, the diving seemed to help! (It probably just distracts me from the pain.) Unfortunately, once we were back on land it got progressively worse again as I walked around, and it’s ace-bandaged again as I type this. So: walking, bad; diving good. Duh.

Today we decided to head south for a change; our first stop was a dive site named Driftwood. We puttered downwards along a ridge and over a lava tube (which Jeff then went back up and over again to meet up with me). In around 70 feet of water, I spotted a pretty, multicolored potter’s angelfish. We hopped over to the other side of the ridge, where the divemaster pointed out an eel hunting with a bluefin trevally. Jeff was so focused on photographing the trevally (who wasn’t running away from us like they usually do), he didn’t notice the eel went right under him. Heading back towards the boat, we spotted a trio of male bird wrasses – first ones we’ve seen, though there’ve been plenty of females!

After the usual surface interval spent eating sandwiches and motoring miles offshore in search of big stuff (didn’t find anything today), we headed back to shore and moored at The Dome. Jeff and I kicked off the dive by poking around in the enormous cavern the site is named after, with lots of skylights to let some light in, but plenty of dark holes to peek into. We didn’t find anything spectacular, but it was a pretty area with the light trickling in and the fish swimming upside-down. We exited on the far side and looped back around past the boat, then went down along a ridge next to the sand. I filmed some goatfish feeding in the sand, and Jeff found a tiny lizardfish in a hole.

On our way back up the ridge, I spotted a bunch of jacks and goatfish hovering together over a coral head, and they didn’t spook as I inched closer – so I started looking for the eel they were out hunting with. Sure enough, one appeared, and Jeff and I watched the show for a bit.

Then Tee came over to grab us, and showed us a bunch of the other photographers gathered around a triton’s trumpet (enormous snail) eating a crown-of-thorns starfish (an invasive species that eats coral). Everyone took turns snapping pics and video of the triton’s meal, while I filmed the merry-go-round of photographers. Jeff pretty much emptied his tank (80 cubic feet as opposed to my 72), and used my octopus on our safety stop just to be safe. (First time we’ve used it, for you mothers out there who are now panicking, and he wasn’t even totally out of air; we were just being cautious.)

Triton’s Trumpet devouring a Crown of Thorns:

We spent the evening in various presentations by the photo pros: Dan talked about digital workflows and some basic Photoshop stuff (though with some tips that were new to us), and after dinner there were slideshows by Marty Snyderman, Jim Watts, and David Fleetham. Jeff and I barely had a chance all day to look at photos or footage – I’m now two days behind in logging my tapes! I guess there’s a chance I’ll catch up tomorrow, since there’s nothing scheduled between the boat dive and dinner at 7. Then again, I may just take the opportunity to nap!

I started today on the wrong foot – literally. The tricky entrance onto the boat yesterday was actually easier than today’s; the boat was even lower relative to the pier. I sat on the edge and put my left foot into a shelf below the pier, and one of the Jack’s folks pulled me across as I pushed off the ledge. But I wound up going sort of sideways because of my foot’s sideways orientation in the ledge, and my right foot twisted under me so I landed entirely on the side/top of it! Serious ouch.

It was a short ride out to the first dive, a sailboat wreck just outside the harbor known as the Naked Lady, and everyone tried to help: we wrapped my foot in an ace bandage, and put ice on it while I held it up. I decided to go ahead and try to dive; it hurt to walk, but there’s no walking underwater.

Getting into my wetsuit wasn’t a problem, but putting on my dive booty was. There’s a certain amount of foot-scrunching I do to sort of wriggle in, and it’s just that sort of foot-bending that hurts! Pulling on my fin was also a challenge; yanking back on the strap to set it around my ankle crunched up my entire foot.

Once in the water, I had no problems. Flutter kicks hurt a bit, but I’m more of a frog-kicker anyway. We headed down to the bottom and photographed schools of blue-striped snappers circling the wreck, hawaiian dascyllus mating behavior, and some bicolor anthias.

Bicolor Anthia:

Wreck of the Naked Lady:

Getting back onto the boat was a minor challenge as well. I handed up my weights first, and then slipped out of my BC so the crew could haul it on board and I only had to worry about getting my own weight up the ladder. Putting as much weight as possible on my good foot, I made it back up without incident.

Since we’d started the day with a deep dive (110 ft), and of course we all completely maxed out our bottom time, we needed an extra long surface interval. We cruised out to sea in search of big stuff (whales, dolphins, whale sharks). After lunch, we came across a pod of dolphins. The boat zipped ahead of them a bit, and then dropped us all in the water in snorkel gear – just in time to spot them swimming under us. We tried again, and this time they were cavorting in our wake just a few feet away from us – but again, once they were in, they all stayed down and just swam under. I doubt anyone got any decent photos out of it, but it was still cool to see literally hundreds of dolphins zooming by beneath us!

We did our second dive at Golden Arches, a relatively shallow site with two big ridges (with arches in them, obviously). On the way from the first to the second, we stumbled across a pair of lei triggerfish who were very upset with Jeff’s fins. He took one off and waggled it beneath the camera to get them to come close, and spent most of the dive in that position.

Lei Triggerfish:

I continued to cruise around the second ridge, observing more mating behavior – seems like all the fish are spawning this week! I hung out in the archway for a while, with a big school of blue-stripe snapper. Initially startled by my bubbles, they eventually got used to me and ignored my presence, and I just kind of chilled out and drifted back and forth with them.

Getting off the boat at the end of the day was a bit nerve-wracking, but with both Jeff and Danny (Jack’s crew) pulling me up I managed to land very lightly on my feet! Unfortunately, walking turned out to be harder than I expected. On the boat, I’d been able to get back and forth with minimal pain, but that was never more than a few steps at a time. Walking to our parked car, and then walking around Long’s Drugs in search of Ace bandages, made me wish I had a crutch!

I debated for a while over whether to go on the manta dive tonight. The smart thing to do, obviously, would be to lay off the foot for a while. But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to film manta rays, or to try out nighttime videography (Dave was going to loan me a light). So I opted in, and thank goodness!

Jeff and I were the first ones into the water and over to the light box. There were no mantas in sight when we arrived, so Jeff settled in photographing an eel that was lurking under the rocks surrounding the manta-attracting light box. While his attention was occupied, one enormous manta swooped in from behind and over our heads, then disappeared for a while. Finally it showed up again, and Jeff paid attention. More and more divers joined us, and we wound up with two or three huge rays showing off. The eel that was hanging out in the light box suddenly took off vertically, swimming upwards through the school of fish hanging out in the light. Between the mantas and the free-swimming eel, I felt a severe sensory overload.

Andy (the divemaster) called us away for a bit to look at a devil scorpionfish on a rock, then we went back to mantas. This was my first attempt at night videography, and I had to turn off the camera sometimes to just sit back and enjoy the mantas instead of looking at the monitor. Andy called us away a second time to check out a reticulated frogfish, a tiny little red fish down in a crack (apparently quite rare). Then back to mantas.

My injured foot started to hurt after being sat on for most of an hour (while manta-watching, you kneel on the uneven ground, squashing your feet and fins beneath you), so Jeff and I started to cruise around a bit. Once again, Andy to the rescue – he pointed out an undulated moray out in the open. Jeff and I followed it around until it spotted a squirrelfish. Well, we helped it spot a squirrelfish with our dive lights. BAM, the squirrelfish was dinner – and we got it all on camera (both our cameras)!

Last year we had more mantas (eighteen), but I think this year was a better dive all-around. It was a truly great night dive!

Unfortunately, the time spent kneeling on the bottom did not do good things for my injured foot. I guess the acid test is whether it feels better tomorrow after a few hours of rest, or worse!

Today was our first day of diving with Jack’s! We were picked up at the hotel, and hopped onto the Na Pali Kai 2 at the Kailua Pier. Getting on is a bit of a trick; the boat doesn’t back up quite all the way to the pier, and is several feet below it. We made it aboard with incident, and Jeff and I were thrilled to be reunited with divemasters Greg and Jan (from our trip last year).

Our first dive was at Lone Tree Arch. We started out following the guide, Elayne, down to the dropoff, but lost her there while Jeff was photographing an eel. We stumbled across Jan, and followed her back up the slope to the arch the site is named after. It’s an enormous rock formation with a cave through the middle, full of schools of fish just drifting in the surge. I had fun watching bubbles collecting on the surface, and trying to get shots of upside-down fish, or silhouettes of the schools in the archway.

Next we watched Chris doing his Reef Check survey for a few minutes, before tooling around by another ridge. Jeff went off to photograph who-knows-what; I stayed within easy eyesight, but we weren’t anywhere near to the accepted standards of buddy distances! (At least, not in California diving – out here, dive groups don’t seem to worry so much about it, since the visibility is so great.) I found a rockmover wrasse picking up rocks and knocking them over to get at snacks underneath, and followed him around for a long time. Sometimes, other fish would catch on to what he was doing and swarm around looking for leftovers. There were also quite a few groups of yellowtail coris wrasses zipping around the reef, scrounging for meals.

After lunch, we hit Eel Cove, with Greg as our guide. He led us around the point to check out the sargent major nests. When divers get too close, the sargent majors get scared off – and schools of raccoon butterflyfish descend for a snack of sargent major eggs! It’s best for the sargent major population if you don’t hang out too long, but it’s pretty much unavoidable – and leads to some interesting photographic opportunities.

The raccoons followed us all the way back around the point, occasionally descending on the unsuspecting sargent majors until the divers passed and the little damselfish could attack the invaders in earnest. Back in the main part of the cove, we went eel hunting. We found dwarf morays, whitemouth morays, and then, the Big One: Jan spotted a dragon moray in a coral head.

I thought dive knives were going to come out. Underwater photographer feeding frenzy! Jeff managed to get a couple of turns in and walked away with some halfway decent shots. I have lots of footage of photographers (and their enormous camera rigs) crowding around the coral head, while Jan waggled her fingers in front of the eel’s hole to try to tempt him out. I do not, however, have any footage of the eel (although I did manage to get a decent look at him). Those are some weird looking little critters!

Dragon Moray Eel:

Jeff pretty much emptied his tank hovering around the dragon moray, so we headed back up to the boat. Back in town, we took Dave and Tee out to lunch at LuLu’s (the first of many meals I hope to buy them in thanks for the camera housing loan). We had a lot of fun chatting about diving, Hawaii, triplets (their daughter just had some), Los Angeles, etc.

In the evening, I usurped Jeff’s computer long enough to log my video. There is way too much of it. I need to lay off the record button a bit more underwater, to save myself time in the editing bay! Everyone’s after me to throw something together to submit on Saturday, but I just don’t see having the time to log (Jeff’s computer), import (Jeff’s computer again), burn to DVD (still stealing Jeff’s computer, which he needs to be using), copy to my computer, and edit. Aghk.

We rounded out the day hanging out with the photo pros in the editing room, where Jeff got some critiques of his photos while I updated all my logs. I foresee another early night – especially since tomorrow is a three-dive day (manta night dive)!

I love not waking up to an alarm. Still, we were up and running by 8am (probably has something to do with being in bed at 9 last night). Our goals for today: relax, do a shore dive, relax, get some food, relax, go on the Body Glove sunset cruise with the Kona Classic folks, and get to bed early.

For our shore dive, we headed down to Place of Refuge, which we dove last year. That time around, it was a Wednesday evening, and we were the only ones in the water. This time, it was a bit more crowded. There were a handful of other divers, about a dozen freedivers of various levels of skill, some kids, and lots of locals hanging out and discussing the diving.

After a quick test dunk to cool off and find out if my camera rig was buoyant or negative (it’s very slightly buoyant), we scootched down the two steps into the water and headed off. There were hundreds of hawaiian dascyllus (little black-and-white damselfish) out and about today, and after a bit of observation we realized we were seeing some spawning action. The fish milled about high in the water column, and occasionally two of them dashed vertically up towards the surface together and released a cloud of “spawn” (the polite term for it, in the world of ictheology). It was actually the sight of many clouds of spawn gunking up the water that finally tipped me off to what I was seeing.

Other highlights of this dive were a turtle fly-by (he didn’t get too close), two juvenile rockmover wrasses, some freedivers goofing around at the “Aloha” spelled out of concrete blocks, and – of course – simply learning how to use the camera. I really enjoyed it; I like the opportunity to capture fish behavior, and the housing is terrifically simple and robust.

Juvenile Rockmover Wrasse:

Getting out of the water at Place of Refuge is a wee bit tricky. The exit itself is pretty simple; there’s a rock shelf underwater that you let a wave carry you onto, and another rock shelf right at water level that you can step up onto after removing your fins. The hard part is that both those rock shelves are full of holes, and those holes each contain an urchin. There are enough people walking around on them that they stay retracted into their holes, but only just; if you bend a finger the wrong way and wind up grabbing the inside of a hole, you’re likely to get stuck! So: flat hands only, and it’s a lot easier in a wetsuit.

In the evening, we grabbed dinner at Sibu before the Body Glove cruise, neither of which was worth writing about in much detail. I would, however, like to mention the ice cream concoction I had at Hula Bean: Volcano. It’s banana ice cream mixed with strawberry, with chunks of Oreos. I’m seriously going to have to try to put this mixture together on my next trip to Cold Stone.

We had a very long day today; it started at 2:30am Hawaiian time (“only” 5:30am pacific time, that is). The plane ride wasn’t any worse than usual, aside from the incredibly squished United seats – I’d actually just forgotten how low on legroom they are, and I’m not even the kind of person that really requires that much legroom! (I do, however, require significantly more hip room than they provide.)

We landed in Kona in the afternoon to clouds and drizzle, though everyone assured us the weather had been beautiful until just now. After checking in at our hotel, the Royal Kona Resort, we drove back up the road to Bubba’s Burgers. Walking in the back way, we chuckled at some of their goofy little signs – stuff like the “eat and get out” motto that used to be plastered all over Ed Debevic’s in Beverly Hills. So when we got to the counter and saw big “Sold Out” stickers stuck next to all the hamburger-related items, at first we thought it was some sort of joke. The person at the counter said, “As you know, today’s our last day of business – so we’re out of hamburgers! We’ll understand if you go somewhere else.”

As we know? We would know this HOW? As we drove away, we double-checked – no “going out of business” signs anywhere in sight. We got our burgers across the street.

We checked in at Jack’s Diving Locker and dropped off all our gear, then made a quick dash to the grocery store for snacks and drinks before showering and heading to the opening reception for the Kona Classic.

We were greeted with goody bags full of stickers, license plate holders, towels, etc, all from the various sponsors of the Kona Classic – and some very uncomfortable plastic leis that we were all made to wear. There was free food, free booze, and a chance to meet all our fellow photographers, as well as the photo pros who would be diving alongside us. Dave showed up with the housing he’s loaning me for the week (do I owe him a favor or what?), and we got to meet his wife Tee as well.

Dave and Tee shared some of the difficulties of home ownership on the big island. On a day when someone was supposed to come paint the house, the guy never showed up. The next day, he turned up with massive bruising all over his leg. When Dave asked where he’d been, the guy told him the surf had been up, so he couldn’t come to work! Not at all unusual out here; these people have their priorities straight.

Afterwards, we went to the opening presentation (rules, some slides, more slides, a raffle, etc). There were some gorgeous presentations by the pros, and it all would have been great fun – except that we’d been up for long enough, and Jeff and I were starting to drag. We finally escaped just in time for Dave to show me how to set up the housing, before we dragged our sleepy selves to bed.

Finally, we got in a nice day of diving with decent visibility and warm water (relatively speaking, that is). Jeff and I boarded the Great Escape last Saturday night for a Sunday trip to Catalina. First we dived Eagle Reef, a big pile of boulders offshore that is CRAWLING with lobsters. This year there were more juvenile sheephead than I remember seeing last year, and we also spotted a new nudibranch that we later identified as Flabellina Trilineata:

This was our second time diving Eagle Reef, and I think it’s one of my favorite spots at Catalina. We didn’t see anything too spectacular this time, but it’s got an interesting topography, with lots of crevices to poke around in. There are also two distinct “sides” to the main reef, as well as many little outlier reefs, so it’s easy to stay away from other divers (and especially students, who are still learning how to not bump into things and kick up sand).

The crew decided it was getting a little “snotty” in the water (visibility-wise) out there, and moved us into Isthmus Reef (by Two Harbors) for our next two dives. I’m not sure what they were thinking, since Isthmus was much snottier than Eagle; we saw 30 and then 20 feet of vis, as opposed to Eagle’s 50. But it’s still a fun dive site, with a good wall where you can pretty much pick your depth. Here we saw many, many, MANY gobies. Behold:

Black-eyed Goby:

Blue-banded Goby:

The little blue-banded guys tend to show up unexpectedly in pictures of other subjects. In fact, if you look above the head of the blue-banded goby in the picture above, you’ll see another, blurry blue-banded goby in the background! They are everywhere at Catalina right now.

Isthmus Reef was also covered with abandoned bits of fishing line, so we had to be careful not to get snagged. I’ve never seen so much line at Catalina – there were quite a few lures as well, which could be a bit startling.

All in all, it was a good day of diving. The weather stayed sunny despite a forecast for clouds, the ocean was flat enough that my tummy didn’t rebel, and the camera and housing completely behaved. That’s right: not a single problem with the zoom ring, auto-shutoff, or strobe. It’s a miracle.

More pics here: Catalina, April 24 ’05

On Saturday night, Kathy and I made Jeff drive all by his lonesome behind us on the way up to Ventura – turns out you just can’t quite fit three people and all their scuba gear in one car, even if that car is a station wagon. (But sort of a small station wagon.) We made it up there just as people started arriving to sleep on the boat, nabbed some decent bunks, and headed out for margaritas at the dockside mexican restaurant before snuggling up in our sleeping bags:

I woke up the next morning as the remainder of the passengers arrived, but stayed in my bunk trying to sleep until I felt the Peace’s engines start. Even then, I thought I might manage to snooze until we reached Anacapa – but as soon as we got outside the harbor, the boat started rocking in a very stomach-unsettling fashion and I bolted for fresh air.

On the bright side, it looked like it would be a beautiful day, sunny and warm. There were plenty of friendly faces on the boat, including a few folks I’d dived with before. But within a few minutes, most of those faces started to look a bit green. It wasn’t a particularly rough day – I’ve certainly survived worse – but for some reason, it was unusually seasick-inducing, and I wound up visiting the boat rail more than once. :(

Anacapa was too rough, so the captin headed for the backside of Santa Cruz. Once there, he continued west along the island in calm seas, giving everyone a chance for their stomachs to settle. We finally dropped anchor at Flame Reef, and started suiting up to hop in as a threesome (Jeff, Kathy and I).

Another diver who I’d been chatting with quite a bit on the way out, Birgit, asked if she could join us since she was buddy-less today. It made a lot of sense, since if the visibility was crud diving as a threesome could be difficult, and we could split into two normal buddy teams. Birgit has about the same number of dives under her belt as Jeff and I, many of them in even colder German waters, so we were happy to have her as a buddy.

It turned out to be a good move, because as soon as we all jumped in we could see a) murky water, b) lots of kelp, c) a moderate current. Not ideal conditions for trying to keep track of more than one buddy! Indeed, by the time Birgit was a few feet down the anchor line, she was invisible behind kelp – and then I realized Kathy was still on the surface having some mask problems. I waved at Jeff to go ahead and follow Birgit (I figured they were a natural buddy team because they both tolerate cold longer than I can), and I headed back to the surface to help Kathy with her mask. It’s never fun to spend too much time on the surface, especially when the current is pushing you back towards the boat, and waves are smacking you in the face as you try to fiddle with your equipment! Luckily, it wasn’t anything serious, and a quick removal and replacement of the mask had Kathy ready to go on her way.

We dropped down the anchor chain and then swam into the current so we wouldn’t wind up downstream from the boat. We never did find Jeff and Birgit on this murky, surgy, currenty dive, nor did we find much else! There were a couple of big sunflower stars, which I don’t think Kathy had seen before, but nothing else of interest. It felt a little strange to be leading the dive; usually I let Jeff navigate, although I try to keep a sense of where I am. Come to think of it, this was the first time I’ve dived without Jeff since my certification dives. It was kind of fun to be the “boss” for a change!

Back on the boat, Jeff and Birgit said they’d watched a harbor seal having a snack – but sadly, didn’t manage to get a good picture before he bailed.

Dive #2 was a bit of an improvement – less current and more fish, but still pretty murky and surgy. Kathy didn’t have any trouble dropping down this time, but we stayed in two buddy teams anyway and didn’t try to all stick together. It’s fun to go diving with a relatively new diver, because the same critters that Jeff and I have seen over and over are still new and interesting to Kathy – or if they’re not, at least I can believe they are when I excitedly point them out to her underwater.

Kathy opted to sit out dives 3 and 4, while Jeff, Birgit and I decided to get one more dive in. I think Kathy was the smart one. We dropped down into 10 foot vis and largely barren rocks, plus a bit of a current and freezing temperatures (it was about 52 degrees all day, and on dive #3 I had finally had it). I thumbed the dive after a measly 15 minutes; German-cold diver Birgit probably thinks I’m a big wuss!

Back on the boat, we all got nice and toasty in the Peace’s hot tub. Why don’t all boats have these?!?!?

All in all, definitely not the greatest day for diving, and I’m bummed we didn’t get to show Kathy anything very interesting. Still, it was nice to be out and in the water again (aside from the seasickness), and to spend the day with other divers. I’d definitely like to dive with Birgit again, on a day when I don’t need to wimp out from cold!

Jeff’s pics are here:
http://gallery.thelaitys.com/v/underwater/uw-20050403_santacruz

And Kathy’s topside shots:
http://gallery.thelaitys.com/v/chronological/2005/20050403_kathy_peace

We’ll see if Kathy got any video….

Sitting around Saturday afternoon, after a morning spent violently scrubbing our unusually filthy apartment until it gleamed, Jeff and I decided that a whole Sunday spent hanging out at home with no internet was just too darned boring to face. We fired up our dial-up connection just long enough to hunt up dive trip possibilities, and started making phone calls. Alas, all the boat charters were booked – I suspect that so many people have been getting their trips “bumped” due to foul weather these last weeks that all the boats still going out are completely packed. But Bill over at Hollywood Divers informed us that Nikki, Rhonda, Karim, and a few others had decided to hit Casino Point on Sunday just for fun. After a little waffling, Jeff and I called up the Catalina Express and made our reservations for a Sunday on the island.

Besides the fact that we’ve done very little diving lately (due mostly to my constantly being sick), we also haven’t taken any underwater photos in almost THREE MONTHS! Jeff was getting serously antsy to use the 300D some more. Of course, wouldn’t you know it: the strobe wouldn’t fire. It would go off just fine in “test” mode, but wasn’t responding to the signal from the camera.

We spent a good hour sitting on our bench under the Casino troubleshooting the darned thing. Well, Jeff troubleshot; I sat and waited. And waited. And sweated. (For a nice change, it was sunny and warm at Catalina yesterday!) I wandered over to chat with Nikki and gang for a while, and checked out the stair entry. It wasn’t very crowded, which was a good thing, because the tide was so unusually low that a good chunk of slimy boulders were exposed at the bottom of the stairs, and there was only one small path to get through them easily.

Finally, Jeff gave up on getting the strobe to function, and I braced myself for a day of Grumpy Husband. Luckily for both of us, he managed to look on the bright side and decided to spend the dives working on taking shots using only ambient light (particularly good for sun rays, silhouettes, and the like).

Our first dive, we headed to the right, as per usual. After standing around in the sun for an hour, and then climbing into my hot wetsuit, I was REALLY ready to jump into that cold California water. Too bad that lovely cooling-off feeling only lasts for about 2 seconds before you just feel completely freezing. I can’t say we saw anything terribly exciting, but it was nice to be diving again! But I had to constantly remind myself that I love diving in California, and I really don’t miss the warm Caribbean water. Sigh.

The thing is, I really DO love it – when I can block the excruciating cold out of my mind. I love rolling over on my back and looking up at the sun streaming through the kelp, and watching schools of blacksmith mill around. Sometimes you come across a de facto school of kelp bass, all lounging in the shade of the same bunch of kelp. They’re not as curious as the darting senoritas, which will come up and peck at your mask or try to “eat” the glowing LED off Jeff’s strobe, but if you stay still the kelp bass wil slowly drift up to your face, giving you a good view of their multicolored eyes and tiny teeth.

After more than half an hour had passed, the beauty of the kelp forest was NO MATCH for the block of solid ice that was my torso, and we headed up. Jeff spent our safety stop photographing kelp:

It’s always a bit of an adventure approaching the entry point at Casino Point, because of how many beginners and students go there to dive. There’s usually a dozen or so people hanging out at the surface, who might decide to descend at any moment without first checking that there’s no one under them. There will be other groups on their way up from their checkout dive, and you can often spot newbies struggling so hard with buoyancy that they have to grab onto kelp (I’m not making fun – I WAS one of those kelp-grabbers once). Even though it was less crowded than usual, I still enjoyed watching a few beginners struggle. I think I get such a kick out of it because I myself was such a lousy diver at first – it’s nice to know that I’m not alone, and also to know that the people who are struggling now will probably be fine after another dozen dives.

We hauled ourselves back across the exposed boulders and up the stars – oh, glorious sun! A few more attempts at strobe troubleshooting didn’t get us anywhere, but we decided to do a second dive anyway.

This time, we headed left, which doesn’t have as much reef structure – however, it’s where we’ve occasionally seen really nifty stuff, like rays and baby garibaldi. On the boat over earlier, I’d asked Jeff if there was anything he particularly wanted to photograph today, and Giant Kelpfish were on his list. So when I spotted one swimming around in the water column, I stopped swimming and yelled to Jeff, who’d already gone on ahead of me. Kelpfish usually hide in the kelp and are very skittish and hard to photograph. This one wasn’t going anywhere: he was busy being cleaned by a senorita. I think he had a parasite stuck to his gills – unfortunately, every time the senorita attacked it, the kelpfish would flinch away, and the process started over again.

My yelling went completely unnoticed thanks to our thick california hoods, and Jeff was slowly disappearing around a bunch of kelp. I get myself into this position fairly often: having to make the choice between following my buddy as safety demands, or staying put to keep an eye on whatever cool thing I want Jeff to take a picture. The cool thing almost always wins. Logically speaking, I can say it’s because Jeff will certainly notice I’m gone pretty quickly and come back to find me, and it’s a lot easier for him to find me than it is for me to find the cool fish again. But I’m also aware that letting my buddy disappear because I want to show him this cool fish reads like the opening paragraph of an accident report! I think it’s time to start trying out more effective noisemakers.

Of course, less than 30 seconds after I lost visual contact with Jeff, he turned around to see where I’d disappeared to, and I frantically pointed out the still-circling kelpfish. He spent about 5 minutes photographing Kelpie and the attendant senorita. Without a flash, the pics were only so-so:

We packed it in after dive number 2. Hopefully we’ll get the strobe (or hot shoe, or sync cord, or whatever’s broken) fixed or replaced before our next dive in two weeks. I’m not sure if Jeff can pull off another looking-on-the-bright-side day; I suspect it took a lot of effort! :)

More pics here:

http://gallery.laityphoto.com/v/underwater/uw-20050306_catalina

Our mission for this Saturday was to test the camera enclosure, and make sure that it was seaworthy before we trust it with our replacement D-Rebel. We’d given it the tried-and-true Bathtub Test already, but we really wanted to take it down deep and make sure nothing leaked.

Not wanting to potentially waste a 3-dive boat trip, we decided to just head out to Casino Point, where we could do as many dives as we felt like (depending on weather, water conditions, and the functionality of the camera enclosure).

This morning, my alarm went off at the strangely civilized hour of 7:30. Usually, our trips to Catalina begin with a 4:15 alarm, so this felt just, well, weird. As we rolled our gear bags down to the car, there were other people awake and about! And the sun was shining! I didn’t feel like a real diver.

We hopped the 9:15 ferry from San Pedro, and I must say, it was quite a ride. There was 4-6 foot swell, and we were in one of the smaller ferries. It wasn’t nearly as bad as being on ANY DIVE BOAT, and I feel very sorry for anyone who made that crossing today. But we got a few good stomach-lurchers in, and there were constantly huge streams of spray arcing past the boat as we crashed into the trough of each swell. It was actually kind of fun (I can say that, because I didn’t get seasick today. Other people were not so lucky.)

We were feeling a little lazy, so we hired a cab to take us and all our gear (there’s more gear than there used to be since we bought a Pelican case for the camera enclosure) through town to Casino Point. It feels downright decadent to take a taxi; like somehow, you’re not a REAL California diver unless you’re willing to lug all your sh*t across cobblestones for 15 minutes.

At the point, we discovered a surprising number of classes working on their certifications – lots of newbies cluttering up the stairs. It was also darned windy, making the temperature in the shade something like VERY COLD.

This was our first dive since we returned from Bonaire, and man, it’s hard to get back to California diving. Not that I don’t love the kelp forests, but MY GOD IT’S FREEZING! My feet were freezing when I first stepped down into the water off the stairs to rinse my mask; my lips froze the instant they touched the surface; the rest of me was a complete icicle for the whole 20 minute (was it even that long?) dive.

Basically, we just headed down. We followed the reef south until we came across the wreck of the SuJac at about 90 feet, then I indicated to Jeff that I’d had all the cold I was willing to put up with, and we returned to the stairs and surfaced.

That’s it. No exciting dive stuff to report. And as we huddled by our gear in the windy shade of the Casino, I informed Jeff that one dive was plenty for me today, thank you, and at least we’d ascertained that the camera enclosure was fine. My whole body felt the way your hand feels after you’ve stuck it in snow – kind of a stinging/burning kind of cold. Ugh. This is why we don’t live someplace where it snows (and tell me again why we DON’T live somewhere with warm water?)

We took another cab back to the ferry and stored our bags there (for anyone keeping track, the taxi and luggage storage costs have now made this trip pretty much as expensive as a day on a dive boat), and went for some lunch and stroll-around-Avalon time. Oh, and ice cream:

While we were tooling around Green Pier, a very friendly seagull approached, making odd little barking/grunting noises. He perched on a trash can and posed for us for a while. I know seagulls are boring, but I just couldn’t resist a few pics:

So, not our best dive trip ever, but still a nice way to spend a Saturday. I think we might have to cut back a little on diving in the winter; we’re getting too spoiled by our trips to warmer climes! Either that, or we need to start saving our bucks for dry suits before next winter rolls around…

One evening, we followed up on a restaurant recommendation from one of the other couples. It was a new place in town, and they absolutely raved about the food. Esther and Menno hadn’t had a chance to check it out yet, but we decided to trust our diving compatriots and give it a shot.

It turned out to be a small house, so the “restaurant” was sort of split up into three rooms. The main room, in front, already had its three tables filled, so the owner opened up one of the additional rooms for us.

Accustomed by now to outdoor Bonaire dining, we’d all dressed in tanks and shorts – so we FROZE upon entry to the super-air-conditioned room. The doors and windows had been closed for some time, we gathered, with the A/C running full blast. We were assured it would warm up soon.

As we sat down at a table, I was overpowered by an unpleasant smell that I couldn’t quite identify. First I thought it was new-paint smell (as we were obviously surrounded by new paint). But that wasn’t it. Turpentine? Paint remover? Whatever it was, it quickly became completely overwhelming for me unless I breathed through my mouth.

We thought we’d ask to be moved to outside or another room, as we perused the menu. And then we realized we were in WAY over our culinary heads: the small menu had some very fancy items on it, but nothing Kathy or I would go near with a ten-foot pole.

That was the final straw for us; we made our apologies to the proprietor and headed out in search of plainer food.

Epilogue: later in the week, I discovered the same smell in several stores downtown. I decided it was most likely some sort of bug spray (based on the cockroaches we spotted down by the water, I’m guessing any place that wants to serve food in town has to exterminate pretty regularly).