Our boat left Ventura harbor at 9 PM Thursday evening, for a 10-hour ride to San Clemente ... which we knew would be at least partly closed due to military maneuvers around the island. But we had been told that it offered some spectacular diving, and wanted to chance that they'd let us dive. As we approached the island around dawn, we could see Navy vessels on the horizon, and since we didnt' get hailed and told to leave, we figured it was going to work out. And it did. Even better, we were met by a welcoming committe in the form of a large pod of dolphins ... several of which entertained us for a long time by surfing off our bow. I'm told that Laurynn gor some great footage ... perhaps she'll share some of it with us.
I didn't keep track of the dive sites we did out there ... although I think Airsix did ... so perhaps he can supply that info at some point. But we did a total of four dives there during the day, and a night dive late in the evening (which I did not do). I was playing with my new dome port on this day ... which I still haven't really gotten to take many pictures with. Unfortunately, on the fourth dive I got caught in some particularly nasty surge, and now my dome port has some particularly nasty gouges in it where I got slammed into some rocks. I had a hard time being happy the rest of the week-end because of it ... but I'm hopeful it can be fixed.
Anyway, here's a few shots I took before I trashed the thing ... wide-angle takes a bit of getting used to for someone like me who's used to taking close-ups all the time ...
Some pics of Ben from our first two dives ...
... and some shots of Lynne on dive #3 ...
That night they moved the boat around to Catalina Island, and the next morning we did Farnsworth Bank. I made two excellent decisions on this dive ... I took a scooter, and I did not take a camera. My dive buddy for that dive was Chris Finley, who I hadn't dived with in a long time. The reef is amazing ... better than Neah Bay ... possibly as good as Port Hardy ... incredible life everywhere! But the current was ripping. When you're aiming your scoot directly into current and aren't going anywhere, you know there's some stiff "breeze" happening. It was a relatively short dive at about 45 minutes, and even on a scooter I felt like I'd had a morning workout.
Second dive was Ship Rock, and I buddied up with Peter and Lynne. This dive was far more relaxing than the previous one, with very little current, gentle surge, and lots of stuff to see. At one point I found an octopus laying out taking a siesta ...
The reef was literally a forest of kelp, sea fans and gorgonians ... with these little orange bathtub toys swimming around everywhere ...
Next dive was a place called Blue Cavern ... which was a cave that went back about 50 or 60 feet. Unfortunately, sometime after the last time the Peace crew had dropped divers on this site, someone had moved the buoy ... so most of us spent the dive swimming around looking for a cavern that was far from where we'd been told to look. A few folks with scooters found it eventually ... but I hadn't brought one, thinking I wouldn't need it.
On the ascent, I did get a decent shot of my dive buddy Karen ...
And for my fourth dive of the day I did a solo dive at a place called Bird Rock ... which is almost aptly named. The reefs at this place were amazing, and I did a long, relaxing dive finding lots to take pictures of ... like this horn shark ...
... and this little bathtub toy with a very confused look on his face ...
Oh ... and I did see a cormorant swimming around down there at about 75 feet ... it's always weird seeing a bird underwater.
Sunday we only got in two dives, because we had to get back to Ventura in time for those of us heading back to Seattle to catch a late flight home. First dive was on Anacapa Island ... and it was once again a beautiful wall with tons of reef structure on top. Once again, because of current, I opted to take the scooter and not the camera. Turned out to be a reasonable choice, although unlike Farnsworth I think I might have been able to get some nice shots at this place.
We'd been planning a second dive on Anacapa, but the wind came up before we could manage it and so we moved next door to Santa Cruz and did a dive over there. This was a shallow reef, known for nudibranchs ... and it lived up to its billing. Although there was no current, there was plenty of surge on this dive ... so getting macro shots proved ... interesting. But I managed a couple that I liked.
This hermissenda crassicornis was busy laying eggs on the underside of a kelp leaf ... I almost had to invert to get the shot ...
... this nudi is maybe a half-inch long ... so imagine the tiny size of that copapod sitting on its "nose" ...
... a colorful anemone ... I saw a few of these ...
... and finally, hanging onto the anchor chain in 50 feet of water, getting blown back and forth with the surge ... I managed a decent face-on shot of another hermissenda crassicornis ...
Overall, 10 great dives, 19 wonderful people to share three days on a boat with, an amazing and professional crew to see to our every need, and weather that was about as perfect as one could hope for. The damage to the dome port put a bit of a damper on the trip, but breakage is something we have to deal with if we're gonna scuba dive, and I've got a few months before I'll really want to use it again anyway ... so I'll think of something.
For anyone who hasn't been there ... the Channel Islands is one of those destinations that you really need to put on your "must see" list ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
In we went...
