Mile Buoy

Friday afternoon rolled around, and once again, we had to have a discussion about whether to cancel the boat on Saturday.  Here's what the forecast looked like:

...SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT THROUGH LATE SATURDAY NIGHT...
 
 .TONIGHT...NW WINDS 20 TO 30 KT. WIND WAVES 5 TO 8 FT. NW SWELL
 3 TO 5 FT AT 9 SECONDS. PATCHY FOG AFTER MIDNIGHT. 
 .SAT...NW WINDS 15 TO 25 KT. WIND WAVES 4 TO 7 FT. NW SWELL 3 TO

 5 FT AT 8 SECONDS. PATCHY FOG IN THE MORNING. 
 .SAT NIGHT...NW WINDS 20 TO 30 KT. WIND WAVES 5 TO 8 FT. NW
 SWELL 3 TO 5 FT AT 8 SECONDS. PATCHY FOG AFTER MIDNIGHT. 

I really love it when there are 5 to 8 foot wind waves.  I mean, really, who doesn't?  For some bizarre reason, despite this forecast and the promise of at most a dive in the bay, no one voted to cancel.  On Saturday morning, the prognosis had not changed, and we were so certain that we wouldn't make it out of the bay that we didn't even load scooters onto the boat!

This weekend, we made it all the way to Mile Buoy.  I was diving with Team Kitty Plus (prime?  plus plus?) again.  It may surprise you, given my general whininess up until this point, but we actually had an excellent dive!  First of all, the viz was great for Mile Buoy.  There was some debate about exactly what the viz was, but I think the numbers that were argued were all in the 40 to 60' range... so whatever it was, it was really good for the bay.  And it was quite bright, which you can sort of see in the video.  It's unfortunate that no one was shooting wide angle (not that I blame them, at all).  Then, there was the super fun wolf eel encounter, with a wolf eel that was out in the open, and totally cool with us being there (or maybe he was just paralyzed with fear).  And last, but not least, we found a slug.  A Tritonia diomedea.  I was looking at it, like "is that what I think it is?" and Rob gave me the most hilarious hand signal.  He signaled that it was the remote-controlled slug.  We went to a talk about this slug several years ago, and one of the things we learned is that they have huge (and few) neurons, so it is easy to map their brains, and hook up electrodes, and basically trigger the neurons one by one... so the idea of a remote-controlled slug was born.  Anyway, it was a pretty funny hand signal.  There was also at least one sea lions swooping down along the bottom to visit from time to time.  Of course he was always too fast to try to video.  I was hoping for some sea lion fun on deco, but it was not to be :(

Given the conditions, there was interest in a second dive.  We ended up back at Shale Island.  While I was tempted to get back in the water, since the viz had been so good at Mile Buoy, after last weekend's quease-inducing dive at Shale Island, I just couldn't get myself interested in it.  So we stayed on the boat and chatted while the others went for a dive.