Scootering with Ted

On Saturday, we scootered at Lobos with Ted. Someone decided we were going to Beto's Reef (apparently Rob and Ted had decided this before I even knew we were diving with Ted). So that was the plan. I managed to negotiate a "late" start of 8:30, hehe. Ted was amazingly unlate (no later than we were, anyway). We decided that Ted would lead us out there, we'd hang out there for a while, then head in shallower, and maybe doodle around in the shallows with the reel (just for practice, since I was saying recently that I haven't actually run line since T1).

We scootered out on the surface until we were a little bit beyond the worm patch, and we dropped in the sand channel. We scooted out, and then Ted took us to Beto's in a slightly more east-ish route than I am used to. So we ended up coming up to Beto's on the right side, instead of the usual straight on or left side. So we hopped over to the other side, and scootered out to the end, just for giggles, and then came back closer to the beginning. Then we clipped off and kicked around. Rob was shooting macro, because I guess he has given up on getting glamour shots of Ted :) We were kicking around looking for interesting stuff, but I really wasn't seeing too much exciting stuff. I did find a Eubranchus on some hydroids and an Aegires or two. Of course there was the wolf eel, who we stopped to visit. Rob was poking around looking for the warbonnet but never found him (I am fairly sure he was too far south). I did find this cool little hole that I dropped into and found it was crawling with Berthellas. It was funny, since I hadn't seen any of them elsewhere on the reef, but they had taken over this little cave. There was a lot of mating going on :) Other than that, I saw a very cute sculpin hiding under a piece of seaweed flopping around in the surge, and a big fluffy Dirona. Before you know it, it was time to head in.

The scoot in was pretty uneventful, except that Ted had some "buckle issues". We'll just leave it at that. When we got to 35 or so feet, Ted stowed his scooter and I towed him in just for practice. When we got to worm patch, after a little discussion, I retrieved the reel from Rob and played with it for a few minutes. As I was reeling in, I noticed a stalked jellyfish on a piece of kelp. I showed it to Rob, and he stopped to take some pictures. It was a bit of a challenge with the surge and the kelp, but I tried to hold the piece of kelp it was on while he took pics. When we were finished with that, I finished reeling in and as I was cleaning up the reel, I heard scooters. I figured Rob and Ted got sick of waiting for me and decided to play a mean trick on me. But when I looked up, it was Kevin and Karl buzzing us. After that, we headed to the sand channel and ascended there. I was pretty wet, so while Rob and Ted were dawdling on the surface, I told them we should get going. I scootered off and as I was going, I saw a cool little jelly just below the surface. I showed it to Rob and we hung out while he took some pics. Then we headed in, and as it turned out, I saw another of the same type of jelly on the way in. 106 feet, 91 minutes, 51 degrees

After warming up and refueling a little, we decided to just do an easy middle reef dive for dive 2. But with scooters of course (yes, I know it is very lame to scooter to the end of middle reef; I blame Ted). We scootered down to the sand channel, to the end of middle reef, and then swooped around through the rubbly patch at the northern end. It got super dark when we entered the kelp forest because of the kelp canopy. We then scootered down the east side sand channel a little bit, and picked a spot to hang out around. I found a little overhang with a Berthella orgy going on underneath. Other than that, I saw the usual stuff, including lots of cute sculpins. We meandered down the channel by kick, and when it was finally time to head in, we scootered back in, and ascended near the worm patch. 64 feet, 62 minutes, 53 degrees

All of the day's pictures are here.