So Peter wanted to be sure to go, and I dragged my sorry butt off the chair to be fodder for the carpool lanes, especially in view of Viadoom. And as long as I was going, I packed my gear, even though I wasn't entirely sure I'd stop coughing long enough to dive.
Traffic was as horrible as envisioned, and we arrived right at 6:30, to find no parking in the lot at all. Peter went off somewhere with the truck, and I wandered around the parking lot, walking up to people totally unknown to me and asking, "Moss Bay?" and getting an endless series of negative replies. I think the people who weren't even there to dive must have thought I was mental, wandering around in my long underwear and accosting strangers. Eventually, I settled down to chat with Calvin and Josh, and I was happy to get a chance to compliment Calvin on the Grand Cayman photos and article, although I was a little taken aback to discover he hadn't just gotten home from there, but from Truk and Palau. What an enviable lifestyle!
Eventually, a pleasant young man arrived and announced he was, in fact, the diver for whom we had been waiting. So we did a brief interrogation, during which we learned a lot about him and he learned nothing about us (which I found amusing) and a rough dive plan was put in place. Everyone repaired to vehicles to dress and gear up, and we met at the sea wall, where I did the two minute dissimilar tank matching rock bottom gas management dive plan, and we headed for the water.
Viz was LOVELY! Mike and I followed Peter as he wandered vaguely around (he has never quite grasped Cove 2 navigation) and killed time looking for little stuff while he took his photographs. And we found a lot of it. TONS of alabaster nudibranchs, and a huge flounder.
While Peter shot a pair of gunnels in a PVC pipe, I was admiring a black-bellied eelpout, and called Mike over to look at it, although I'm not sure he knew why I wanted him to look at a rather ordinary fish. We picked up a pair of harbor seals, who were hunting with a visible lack of commitment, but appeared to be playing with a great deal of joy. Two ratfish swam by us, with their brilliant tapetums reflecting the canister lights.
Under the bow of the Honey bear, as we had been warned, was another real Octozilla. He wasn't tucked away, and was fully visible, and he was enormous.
While Peter shot him, I amused myself by playing with a decorator crab who was domiciled on a big pile of ochre stars. Heading home, I did my favorite swim-under with the crossed pilings, and then turned around and inspected the side of the far one, and just as I had found the last time I dove there, there was a pretty Red Irish Lord tucked into an opening in the side of the log.
I waited patiently as Peter shot a pair of shrimp,
and as I was waiting, I noted a long, graceful pair of legs extending from the bottom of another piling. I was pretty sure I knew who this was, and sho' nuff, when I swam over, it was my friend the scaled crab. I called Mike over and tried to make hand motions for "look inside and UP", but in the end, I'm unsure whether he saw the crab, or understood why I was excited about it.
On the way into the shallows, we encountered a big school of tubesnouts, oriented completely at random and looking like nothing more than a bunch of I-ching reeds thrown down on a table. Beyond them, in the very shallow water, were rivers of small, silver fish -- huge numbers of them, flowing this way and that. At this point, we all turned lights off and played in the biolume.
It was a beautiful hour's dive, and once again, I was struck by how rich and rewarding a dive site within eyeshot of downtown, and subjected to daily, intense diver pressure, can be.
