BAUE Rec Boat

On Saturday, after fixing my wing problems, we were on the Escapade for the BAUE rec boat. I organized the boat, and had dubbed it the "birthday boat" because it was Matt's birthday (and the day after Kevin's). After we were teased with the great conditions down by Yankee Point on Friday, we were ready to go south today. Luckily the weather cooperated, and we went south. All the way to Lobos Rocks. Woohoo. I was telling someone on the way down that every time I go to Lobos Rocks, I regret not going shallower on the wall of green anemones (because I am a wimp and the up and down surge is scary). So this time, armed with my scooter to zip me out of the surge, I was going shallow! When we got in the water, it was really calm. We dropped down the line, and were greeted to excellent viz. Jim always anchors on a little pinnacle to the south of the west rock, and you have to jump across a sand channel (which is kind of deep, about 120' I think) to get to the site. I think this is the first time that I could see the rock across the sand channel without a problem. It was nice not having to swim off over the abyss, assuming the site was out there somewhere :)

When we first got to the site, we curved around to the east and shot up the channel between the two rocks briefly. We were greeted by the sea lion ballet. They were going crazy. It was the best sea lion encounter I have ever had at the site (which is always good for sea lion encounters!). I tried to get them riled up for a picture for Rob, but it seemed relatively impossible to actually get them where he wanted them. I did have one fun moment where I was scootering along and then realized a giant sea lion was stopped right in front of me, and he wasn't moving. I came within arms reach of him before I stopped and was briefly terrified of what he was going to do to me, before he decided to just give me a serious scowl and swim off. After that, we headed back over to the southwest side to play with the green anemones. I had fun getting whipped around by the surge while Rob got some pictures of the anemones and ochre stars. After we'd had enough of that (and I recovered my ability to tell which way was up), we headed around to the west side. We stopped at a big patch of metridium and Rob took some pictures there. Then we continued around and eventually circumnavigated the west rock. We briefly paused at the big pink piece of hydrocoral on the north side, and I rolled my eyes as Rob pondered stopping for pics. He already has shots of that hydrocoral, and it was quite surgy! Luckily Rob came to the right conclusion and we continued on. When we got back near the south side, the sea lions were back out for some more fun.

We killed a little time on the south side and then hopped back over to the other pinnacle where the anchor was. We found the line without problems (thanks to the viz) and headed up. It had gotten a bit sportier on the surface... when we ascended, there were whitecaps everywhere :( On the surface interval, we enjoyed some birthday snacks. Leah made some awesome cupcakes that were super pretty (and really tasty). I wish I had taken a picture! We headed up to Outer Pinnacles for the second dive. We anchored in the usual spot and did the usual tour, visiting Rob's favorite hydrocoral crack for some pics. Rob was totally hogging that spot from Clinton, snicker. The viz was really good. It was a little surgy but nothing too crazy. There were also quite a few blue rockfish in the water column. Other than that it was pretty much the usual suspects.

After we got back to K-dock, we headed to Papachano's for lunch.