We couldn’t have picked a better weekend to dive the Northern Channel Islands. The weather was sunny and beautiful, the swell cooperated, the sea lions were in a playful mood, and we had a great bunch of people signed up for the limited load trip on the Vision. 14 out of the 21 divers were with Ken Ashman of California Digital Diving, and of those, 6 of us were from the Sole Searchers dive club. The Vision, an enormous boat to start with, normally takes 40 divers. For about an extra $100 apiece, we got so much room to spread out as to make it completely worth it; empty bunks to store extra bags, two galley tables devoted entirely to camera rigs, and plenty of room on the dive deck for everyone to gear up.

Basically, we were on the ideal dive trip.

Sunday dawned flat and beautiful at San Miguel, the channel island farthest to the west and most susceptible to high swell and rough weather. We knew it was going to be an outstanding trip when we heard the first dive site was at Wilson’s Rock, a favorite of ours from previous trips, and a tricky site to dive unless conditions are perfect. As the boat slowed down and approached the dive site, sea lions started leaping out of the water to greet us, as if to ask why on earth we were taking so long to come amuse them.

Visibility at most sites we hit was anywhere from decent to outstanding, and there was little or no current. There actually was some surface swell, but extremely long-wavelength, making it easy to get in and out of the boat – but creating some pretty deep surge, which made the photographers’ jobs harder.

Still, we really can’t complain. We got dives in at some of the most amazing and hard-to-reach sites around San Miguel. On Sunday we hung out at Wilson’s before moving over to Castle Rock, where I spotted our first ever wolf eel.

My wolf eel!

Monday morning we headed out to Richardson’s Rock, a pinnacle that comes up to about 30 feet, with most of the dive site around 60. The top layer of water was a bit murky, but as we descended down the anchor line the entire dive site suddenly popped into view. We could see the entire topography of Richardson’s clearly; a wide plateau of rock with craters and crevices carving out most of its inside. Every surface was crawling with decorator crabs and anemones; we even saw one crab dragging away an octopus for lunch. There were strangely no fish in sight, but their absence was soon explained when a dozen sea lions popped into view, searching for breakfast. Instead, they found their second-favorite thing: divers! We did two dives at Richardson’s, and the sea lions performed on both, twirling around and blowing bubbles in imitation of the divers.

This really shows off the psychotic side of sea lions:

In fact, we saw sea lions on 9 of the 10 dives we did at San Miguel, including a night dive (it’s a bit alarming to have a sea lion pop up in front of your face in the dark). In between dives, they amused us with antics on the surface, jumping and splashing as if it was all choreographed, until anyone tried to get some video or a photo. Then they became suddenly camera-shy.

That wasn’t the case underwater at all. On our last dive at San Miguel, Jeff and I attracted the attention of a young sea lion towards the end of our dive, as we puttered around in 30 feet of water. This guy couldn’t get enough of us, dipping down to stare and blow bubbles, and coming closer and closer. He bumped his nose into the glass front of my video housing, and poked at my video lights. Then he went to check out Jeff’s camera rig, mouthing Jeff’s strobes as if to see if they were edible (he didn’t actually bite down, so no harm was done). I was laughing so hard my video is unwatchable from all the shaking – doh!

On Monday night, I opted out of the night dive (it would have been dive #6 that day, and I’d attempted a night dive the previous night only to be disappointed by lousy vis and terrible surge). Jeff buddied up with Carol and Ray, and I joined the other holdouts on deck to keep an eye out for returning divers. We were about a half mile off the coast of Santa Rosa, but every time the waves crashed into the rocks there you could see the glow of bioluminescence. Sometimes you’d see a flash in the water closer to the boat as some large fish made a fast move. Every now and then, the divers would aim their lights in the right direction, and the water would light up in a halo around their location. It was a pretty surreal way to spend an evening, and beautiful.

Random prettiness:

Tuesday, we stayed at Santa Rosa in the morning, visiting some of the pinnacles off shore to the east. The boat metered some reef structure they hadn’t dived before a bit to the west, and we headed back that way to check it out and see if it was a decent dive site. It turned out to be pretty cool; a rock plataeu in about 60 feet of water, dropping off to about 80 feet with a ledge-like overhang that you could poke around under in search of critters. I imagine they’ll visit it again.

Our last dives of the trip were over at Santa Cruz, an island we sometimes visit on the Spectre – but not usually the west end. At first it looked like a fairly mediocre dive site; shallow, so-so visibility, and lots of the ubiquitous surge. But near the end of our last dive, it suddenly turned into one of those nifty, memorable dives when I spotted a Hilton’s Aeolid on a little wall. We’d only ever seen one of these guys before, and they’re one of my favorite nudis. Then I spotted another. And two more after that. There was a whole village of Hiltons! Of course, Jeff didn’t have the macro lens on. After we tore ourselves away from Nudi Central, I found myself accosted by a very curious sheephead. Now, these guys are popular food for spearfishermen, and tend to be at least a little skittish. Not so this dude: he kept drifting right up into my mask as if he wanted to come inside.

Checking out his reflection?

In some ways, I wished it was a longer trip – I didn’t want to stop diving! On the other hand, three days is about all my body can take, at least when I’m cramming in 5 dives a day. I loved diving San Miguel in a dry suit (water in the low 50s, so it made a HUGE difference), but there were a few drawbacks. Less neoprene padding means it’s more painful to hit the water in a giant stride, and WAY more painful to crawl around on the metal swim step on your knees. I have an interesting array of bruises up my shins and knees, and on the last dive I barely managed to haul myself up the swim step stairs.

Even the ride back to Santa Barbara was fun; the captain slowed the boat down so we could all check out a school of grampus, which look like a cross between pilot whales and dolphins.

I hope we don’t wait a whole year before doing one of these trips again; it’s the best way to do California diving. Check out the rest of our underwater and topside pics, and hopefully I’ll have some watchable video snippets soon as well. If you’re really bored, my dive logs are here.

Lots of nice scenery from the boat:

We almost have new bookshelves – three of these puppies:

As promised….

My poorly-fitting, super-stylish drysuit:

About halfway poofed-up with air:

Jeff gets in on the poofing fun:

It’s been one of those lovely weeks where we’re booked solid every single night (and sandwiched between two fairly strenuous weekends, to boot).

On Monday night, I wandered over to Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena for an author event; Robert Jordan was there to do a Q&A and sign copies of the Wheel of Time series. It being Halloween, I was really hoping some hardcore geeks would show up in WoT costumes; alas, I was disappointed to see only a handful of vampire and Japanese schoolgirl outfits.

A lot of the excitement of the Q&A was gone because of the detailed reports everyone had posted on the internet since he started his tour a month ago – ten years ago, you could get away with giving the same spiel at every stop, but now we’re all spoiled in advance! Still, it was good to see one of my favorite authors still hale and hearty. He’s a little thinner than the last time I saw him, and a little grayer, and he wasn’t personalizing signatures – but he was posing for photos with the fans, which is new. He used to always wear a hat and dark glasses indoors, and seemed to dislike having his photo taken.

Getting my books signed by Robert Jordan:

He commented on my battered-up copy of The Fires of Heaven, which is dog-eared, fruit-punch stained, and a bit wobbly in the spine, saying he liked to see a well-read book. You’d think I’d take more care of first-edition hardcovers that I always make the effort to get signed, but you’d be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Books are for reading, not re-selling; that’s why I’m bummed he doesn’t personalize anymore, though it makes them more Ebay-able.

***

Tuesday, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the dive condition reports coming out of Laguna. Zero to one-foot surf, almost no surge, and 15-20 foot visibility. On a beach dive!! The reports had been steadily improving since Saturday, and I didn’t dare hope they’d last much longer. I jokingly sent Jeff an email asking him to ditch work with me Wednesday morning in favor of a dive – and we wound up heading down for a Tuesday night dive instead.

By the time we’d picked up tanks, packed up gear, and waded through rush-hour traffic on the southbound freeways, it was well past sunset. We pulled up in front of Shaw’s Cove at about 7:30 or 8pm, and I was delighted to see a few other groups of divers suiting up on the street.

It was dark down there. We’d timed our dive well to coincide with high tide, but it was also a new moon. Did I mention dark? The instant I hit the water, my octopus started free-flowing, and the bubbling/whooshing air was so distracting that I almost dropped a fin, which would not have been good in the dark. By the time I had my fins firmly attached and could pay attention to the octopus (one good whack set it to rights), it had blow through about 500psi of air; we still had plenty left for a long shallow dive, though, so we headed down to the reef.

All in all, it was only a so-so dive. We saw a little octopus, some skittish stingrays, and one little bat ray that floated slowly over our heads and then zipped away at an amazing speed – but that was really it, other than what turned out to be a whole lot of other divers bumping into each other and the sand. A class or two had apparently decided to take advantage of the nice conditions! Jeff also discovered that the macro lens’ autofocus really is not sufficient for night dives, even with a focus light, so he didn’t come away with any pictures. (On the up side, this means he won’t waste any of our night dives off the Vision later this month with the macro lens!)

It was midnight by the time we’d driven home, rinsed our gear and tidied up, and probably not really worth all the effort; I don’t think we’d do it again. But it’s cool to be the kind of people who just up and go diving mid-week.

***

Wednesday, Jeff and I split up again – he went to some sort of alumni/student networking event at USC, and I went drinking. Well, I went to a movie with some girlfriends, and we just happened to hit a local pub in time for happy hour in advance, and walking distance from the theater. Several cocktails in the space of an hour turned us into three very loud women (okay, not that different from usual), having intensely personal conversations in the middle of a crowded bar. I think a few barflies got an earful; every now and then we’d see a guy sort of twitch in our direction like he wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly.

***

Thursday we finally had a “boring” day – we stayed home and did laundry. And watched Nikki’s video from diving in Borneo, 2004 – we’re scoping out the South Pacific for our big 2006 trip, and so far Tahiti is losing its lead (despite the 6 night stay Jeff won at the Kona Classic – the darned place STILL winds up more expensive than anywhere else!).

***

And now, Friday November 4, we’re celebrating two holidays in one: Jeff’s 35th birthday next Tuesday, which he’ll actually spend on a plane, and our 5-year “smoochiversary.” We’ve got a fancy dinner planned, and then it’s off to bed as early as possible (which won’t be very early, since we have 8:30 reservations) – tomorrow we’re doing our drysuit checkout dives at Catalina.

Jen blogged earlier this week about celebrating her “real” anniversary; the anniversary of the day she and Jeremy decided “they liked each other well enough,” as opposed to their wedding day. I feel sort of the same way; the day that Jeff finally decided to make a move in response to my endless flirting was hands-down the best day of my life. So I was pretty happy with the idea of celebrating tonight, even though it’s not his real birthday yet.