Surge and Icky Viz at Lobos

Rob and I had Lobos tickets, and it turned out that so did Matt and Leah, so we decided to all do a dive together.  I think I've become a bit spoiled by the good viz at Lobos on my last few dives, but this brought me back to reality... the viz was pretty icky, I would normally call bad viz "green" but really I think it was more like brown :)  It wasn't like viz so bad you couldn't keep a team together, or navigate to the usual spots, but it was just pretty icky.

We basically did a tour of the usual spots on the "left" side, including Three Sisters, Beto's Reef, and then we headed back to the Lone Metridium area.  There were a fair number of blue rockfish hanging out at the Sisters, but that was about the only thing of note out there.  Back around Lone Metridium, it was quite surgy and viz was pretty brown.  But we were poking around there for a bit, including paying a visit to the GPO near there.  I was having fun watching the NDL time on my JJ controller.  So, for better or worse, the controller has a deco computer in it, which as far as I can tell, cannot be switched to a gauge mode.  This can be annoying for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is that I haven't paid for the VPM module, so I'm using Buhlmann, though I typically dive more or less VPM).  But it's also kind of entertaining to watch how the computer behaves as you move shallower.  As we headed in from the Sisters, I was perilously close (hahaha) to going into deco, but then once we got to 60 feet, I had basically unlimited NDL time.  So anyway, the fact that I was having fun watching my computer tick time away from NDL is an indicator of the quality of the dive.

Eventually the surge got to Leah, so Matt and Leah decided to head in, and we split into two teams.  We poked around the area a bit longer, and then Rob suggested we make a quick run over to Granite Point.  I wasn't too interested in going there, since I figured it would be damn surgy, but he just wanted to say hello to the GPO over there.  So we zipped over there, it was in fact damn surgy, and we said hello to the GPO and then headed back in.  We had been planning to do a practice ascent from the end of Middle Reef, which I tried to wave off, but Rob gave me a look, so we did it.  I felt quite un-spazzy on this dive, a first since I'd started diving the RB, and I didn't want to ruin that with a spazzy ascent :)  The ascent went very well though, so I guess I didn't ruin it.  After the dive, when I told Rob my reasoning, he correctly thought it was really lame.  After that, we went back to the bottom and came in the sand channel to finish the dive.

After packing up, we headed to RG Burger for some lunch and mediocre service.  While we were there, there was a flurry of text messages and phone calls about the boat on Sunday.  There was a tech charter on Sunday, with a pretty light load and a pretty bad forecast.  So there was some discussion about whether the boat should go.  Then I got email announcing that the boat was cancelled.  Rob and I were staying down in Monterey for the night, so we still wanted to dive.  We called Jim and decided to go out on the boat anyway, and just bring gear for an in-the-bay dive as a backup, if the conditions were as bad as the forecast predicted.  With that decided, we headed to the Quality Inn to checkin, and then over to the Taste of Monterey for some wine and wifi.  I wanted to get some work done in the afternoon, so I was thinking we could take our laptops to Starbucks, but then we had the idea to go to Taste of Monterey instead.  Coding from a wine bar is a brilliant innovation.

Kevin's Birthday Dive

We were scheduled to be on the tech boat on Saturday, which was Kevin's Birthday dive.  Technically his birthday was earlier in the week, but since we all must suffer the indignity of working for a living, we observed the joyous occasion on Saturday.   As it turns out, the forecast was horrible, so horrible that a bay dive was the most that we could hope for.  Kevin had just received his JJ, and had taken it for a spin on Friday.  So he was antsy to get more hours on it, so we agreed to punt the boat and go for a recreational shore dive instead.  We had no Lobos tickets, so we had to figure out where to go.  I suggested MacAbee since, well, it's not the breakwater!  I haven't been there in ages, and I do like MacAbee!  Kevin agreed with it, so there was really nothing Rob could say (he's a MacAbee hater).

One benefit of punting on the boat was that we agreed to meet at 10AM.  Ahh, so luxurious.  I actually got to sleep in, compared to my usual wakeup hour.  That never happens when we go diving.  Somehow even with the late start, we managed to get really good parking spots on the street, right in front of the beach.  We could see from the beach that the Escapade was at Mile Buoy, so we didn't feel too bad about missing the boat :P  We could also see the Beachhopper right off of MacAbee (at the spire, maybe?)  Rob didn't want to put X-tables on the beach, which I found a bit annoying, but he made it out like it was going to be this huge big deal to put the tables on the beach.  So fine, I went along with it.  We got geared up at the back of the van and did all of our checks up there and then headed down to the water.  We swam out a bit and dropped in less than 20 feet of water.  The viz pretty bad, and it was a little surgy at that depth.  The surge was only really notable because it meant there was kelp salad swirling around in parts.  I was supposed to be leading, but I was not doing a very good job of getting us deeper.  I think I unintentionally took us a bit west as we were heading out.  Rob got ahead of us, trying to lead us to where we wanted to be, and the next thing you know, he was gone.  I thought I was following his white tanks, but then I decided it was just a bright clearing ahead in the sand.  Keeping track of people without bubbles is definitely harder.  So Kevin and I surfaced and after a minute, we saw some bubbles, as Rob surfaced too.  He was quite close to us when he surfaced, but the viz was so bad, we never would have seen each other.

We headed back down and then managed to get on the right heading and get deeper.  The viz got better, until it was eventually quite good below about 40 feet.  I found a variety of nudis, including some Hopkins roses, Spanish shawls, and Hiltons'.  Eventually when we got out to 50 feet or so, we put up a bag to do a practice ascent.  That went fine, a little slow, but nothing too dramatic.  We surfaced not terribly far from the Beachhopper, hehe.  After a little debrief and Kevin telling us how awesome the JJ is, we headed back down.  This is when I realized just how good the viz was below 40 feet!  It was murky, murky, murky on the way down, and then suddenly it got really clear.  It must have been at least 30 feet, but it was a nice clear 30 feet.  It was also really cold compared to the murky water above!  We did a few more drills and poked around a bit, and then we headed in.  When we got out of the water, not too surprisingly, I found it annoying to not have a table on the beach.  I took a break on the way up, leaning against a sandy ledge, and somehow managed to get sand all over my suit, my gloves, and my face.  Rob was really annoyed when I brought my sandiness up to the van, which was excellent revenge for the X-table debacle.

After packing up our gear, we were talking about where to go for lunch, and we all sort of came up with Sonic at the same time.  It was Kevin's birthday, so we wanted to go somewhere special ;)  Since I didn't manage to make cupcakes or anything for the occasion, we stopped at Starbucks on the way and I got 3 cake pops, and then we all met up at Sonic for lunch.  Mmmm, tater tots.

Back at Lobos

The purple beast

Team Kitty-proper was diving at Lobos today.  I guess I didn't really officially announce it yet, but I recently got a rebreather, a JJ-CCR, which shall henceforth be referred to as the Purple Beast  (I took a class on the JJ in February, but my unit just recently arrived.)  So, we have a lot of easy recreational diving ahead of us, to get comfortable with the beast.  Last weekend's three-dive-day was aimed at that.  At the end of the day, I was threatening to list my JJ for sale on Craigslist.  So, I wasn't super excited about another day with the beast, but I recognized that it was necessary to get over the hump.  After a week of diving it in class, I actually loved diving the thing.  Rob and I were diving JJs, and Kevin was in open-circuit.  Kevin took the class too, and has a JJ on order, but hadn't received it yet.  He was jealous.

We pretty much did the tour of Lobos again, with some GPO-peeping stops included.  We were also planning on doing some drills on the way back in.  The visibility was pretty good, I might even call it very good.  We hit all of the major spots, including Granite Point (and its nearby GPO), Lone Metridium (and its nearby GPO), the Sisters, and Beto's.  We spent more time at Beto's than probably any of the other spots, or at least it seemed that way.  However, we did not succeed in finding either a GPO or a wolf eel in the usual wolf eel crack.  When we were on our way over to Lone Metridium, we ran into Beto (with Paul and Greg, I think), and they were gesticulating toward the crack with the GPO... so they saved us the trouble of having to find it ourselves :)  Other than the GPOs, we saw some sea hares in the sand between Middle Reef and Granite Point, which is unusual, I think.  I don't know if I've ever seen a sea hare at Lobos before!  So that was pretty coold.

After a whirlwind tour of Lobos, we returned to the end of the sand channel to do some drills.  We did some drills last weekend too, but this week was a bit more extensive, since we didn't have any time constraints.  We started out around 60 feet, where we put up a bag and dropped our scooters.  We practiced a few ascents with short hangs, some bailout drills, S-drills, and other such fun things.  We eventually moved closer in along the sand channel, and did a few more drills around 30 feet, and at least one more practice ascent, before heading in.

After the dive, discussion turned to whether we were any warmer on the dive than usual.  I didn't really think so, until Kevin pointed out that it was a two and a half hour dive.  Normally I wouldn't make it that long in the water without ending the dive because I was cold!  So maybe there IS something to this thing about rebreathers being warm.  Though I don't think that really makes up for the whole having to learn how to dive all over again :)

Three-Dive Day

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We were originally planning on diving on Saturday and Sunday, and then Saturday's boat was cancelled on Friday night, due to hellish weather (which according to Jim turned out to be the right choice).  We had Lobos reservations on Sunday, but there had also been talk of going out on the Escapade for a rec charter in the afternoon.  When our plans for Saturday disintegrated, we decided to do the unthinkable... Lobos in the morning, and the Escapade in the afternoon!

For the Lobos portion of the day, I was diving with Rob and Matt.  After the successful visit to the Granite Point GPO the previous weekend, we decided to head over there for a visit, and also meander about on the Cannery Point side of the world too.  Sort of a tour of the shallow areas of Lobos.  We went to Granite Point and found the GPO without much trouble (Rob led us there).  He was there, and was pretty squirmy and active in the crack, but not too interested in coming out to play :(  There was a nice pile of shells outside of his crack.  Since I had apparently missed the super obvious "Lone Metridium" the last time I was there, I looked up from the crack and realized that Clinton was right... it really was right above my head, and hard to believe I hadn't noticed on the last dive.  But it was all closed up, at least today, so maybe that is a good excuse.

California Trivia Snail, aka the zebra snail
Photo by Clinton Bauder

After visiting the sure thing GPO, we went over to the Cannery Point side and meandered around between Hole in the Wall and Lone Metridium.  During the meander, Matt managed to find another GPO (maybe the one that's been around that area for a while, but I'm not sure, since I'd never seen that one before).  This one was not as big as the Granite Point one, but still a great find!  Rob was being oblivious when we found it, so I had to basically scooter over to him and demand that he follow me, in order to show it to him!  The GPOs were the only really noteworthy finds, though I did see another Limacia this week (pretty close to Lone Metridium).

On the way in, when we got to the sand channel, we did a few drills and then we headed in.  The exit at the ramp was dramatically different than last time.  The tide was pretty low, but it was lake-flat.  For some reason, I still needed a hand from Matt getting out.  I think I've lost my touch at the Lobos ramp; just out of practice, I guess.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We headed to K-dock, with a stop at the deli across the street.  I didn't know they had tacos there; that is a bit of a game-changer.  John and Clinton were joining us on the boat, and I guess John got stuck in the afternoon traffic coming into Monterey (the downside of the afternoon boat), so we were a bit slow getting going.  But there wasn't really any hurry, since we were planning to dive in the bay.  Since we were planning to dive in the bay, I was just sort of assuming it would be a calm, easy day on the boat.  But it was actually a bit rocking and rolling by the time we got out to Aumentos, where we did our first dive.

The viz was above average for a bay dive, but it was pretty surgy at the bottom.  I think the viz was actually better mid-water, because it was just a bit churned up on the bottom.  We saw a few (tiny pacific) octopus, which was the highlight of the dive for me.  Rob kept finding them in funny places, where I would refuse to see them and then realize I was staring right at it.  And I saw another Limacia!

Photo by Clinton Bauder

For the third dive of the day we went to... drum roll... Eric's Pinnacle!  Rob has long claimed that he has never been to Eric's Pinnacle, and so he always refuses it when it is suggested.  He considers it a badge of honor that he's never dived Eric's.  I have long claimed that I have done one dive there with Rob (and several without), but I've never thoroughly researched his claim.  Turns out he has dived it before, though from the sounds of it, it wasn't a very memorable dive.  But while we were picking the site on the boat, we all thought this was going to be Rob's first dive there.  Quite exciting.  Overall, it was quite a nice dive, though there wasn't anything specifically awesome to mention.  We circled around the pinnacle like one and a half times, peering into cracks as we went.  I was thinking it might be a good spot for GPO peeping, since there are so many nice-looking potential octopus dens, but it was not to be.  For reasons that were a bit controversial on the dive (and not because we couldn't find the anchor line), we ended up shooting a bag and surfaced not too far from the boat, but just far enough to be too lazy to swim back.  So we had a little bit of a wait to get picked up by the boat.

We headed to dinner at the sushi place at K-dock, where, amazingly, I have never eaten before.  It was an acceptable meal.  John had brought his family (or two-thirds of it) on the boat, and Bev joined us for dinner, so it was quite the social occasion.

Since Rob wasn't taking pictures and I wasn't videoing today, I am posting a few of Clinton's pictures from the boat dives (gotta milk that lifetime license for all it's worth).  I really like the lingcod eye, but what I *really* like is the snail.  Why?  Because I have been occasionally seeing this snail and not knowing what it was (I've been calling it the "zebra snail") for a few years.  I actually just saw one recently, and was wondering about it again.  So it's great that Clinton got a picture and ID'd it for me.  I know it was just for me :)

A Blah Dive at Lobos

We stayed down in Monterey on Saturday night, and dove at Lobos on Sunday.  The day before, when we were at lunch, someone reported (based on something on Facebook, I think), that there had been a white shark sighting at Point Lobos, in Bluefish Cove.  I didn't know who reported it, so didn't know the credibility, so I basically ignored it.  Then I heard it was Ted H. who saw it, and it seemed a bit more credible.  When we pulled into Lobos, the park aid at the gate (whose name currently escapes me), was like "Did you hear?  A diver saw a white shark here yesterday!  Isn't that cool!?"  Not exactly the reaction I was expecting :)  She also told us that Paul (who was already down at Whalers) had the video/pictures of it on his iPad.  So when we got down to the parking lot, we watched the video and looked at the pictures.  Yep, definitely a white shark.  Clinton made some remark about how we'd been outdone (referring to the whale sighting and pictures).  I was diving with Clinton, so naturally we didn't let this get in the way of our dive plans, though we did discuss the plan if we encountered a white shark (get pictures, then crawl home on the bottom :P).  We didn't really have much of a plan for the dive, but I really wanted to go octopus hunting, and I knew that Clinton knew where some of the GPOs lived.  So we decided to go to Beto's Reef and Granite Point, since those were the two spots that Clinton was confident that he knew where the GPO dens were, though the Beto's GPO hadn't been spotted in quite some time.  The Granite Point GPO had been seen very recently, so we were pretty confident we'd see him (if we could find the den).

The swell was not huge, but it was a fairly long period, so it was a bit surgy in the sand channel, and viz was not awesome.  The water was pretty bright, but there was just a lot of stuff in the water.  We headed out pretty much straight to Beto's Reef, found the GPO was not in its den (no surprise there), and wandered around there just a bit.  We then agreed to head over to Granite Point, and I suggested that Clinton lead.  I wasn't opposed to leading, but if I were leading, I would just go back to Middle Reef and then over to Granite Point, which I admit is a bit silly :)  We headed out over the sand, where I would say the viz was not actually too bad.  We sort of meandered off course and got a bit deeper than we should have been (to hit the main wall at Granite Point), but we eventually corrected and found Granite Point.  In hindsight, it probably would have been faster to just go via Middle Reef!

I had no clue where the Granite Point GPO lived... everyone referred to it as being by the "other" Lone Metridium, which I was not familiar with.  So once we got over there, we sort of zigged and zagged a bit while Clinton was finding the spot, and I had no idea if we were on the right track.  Then Clinton stopped at a sort of vertical pinnaclet and started poking around in a vertical crack.  So I went over to take a look and sure enough, there was a GPO in the crack!  It was a decent-sized one, who was pretty active, but active in his den.  I tried (not very hard) to interest him in coming out (here, kitty kitty), but he just wasn't interested.  After playing with him for a bit, we wandered around a bit, mostly in the area just north of the main wall.  I found a Limacia, which I haven't seen in a while, for whatever reason.  I never did see the "lone metridium" and when I told Clinton that after that dive, I think it took a lot for him not to smack his forehead as he told me that if I had looked directly up from the GPO crack I would have seen a metridium right above my head.

After not too much of that, we headed back south toward the main wall.  I knew that Rob and Clinton had found a GPO somewhere near the north side of the main wall a month or so ago, so I wasn't too surprised to see Clinton poking around in the rocks there.  He flashed me excitedly, and I was expecting he had found a GPO, but then he pointed into a way-too-small crack.  I looked in and saw a red eel-looking thing, which was apparently a red brotula (Clinton told me after the dive).  I was going to say that I've never seen one before, but according to the archives, I saw one on a dive in Puget Sound.  So I guess I can still claim I've never seen one locally before, which makes it still a cool find :)

From there, we headed back to middle reef, and then we sort of gave each other the shrug about what to do next.  It just wasn't that awesome of a dive, and we'd already covered a good bit of ground, and I guess neither of us were feeling compelled to do anything more.  So we headed in on the sand channel. The dive had been so un-awesome that Clinton hadn't even taken his camera out, and I hadn't done much with my hero-cam, so I made Clinton setup a shot of him scootering through the frame, so I would have *something* to post here.  Unfortunately even that didn't really turn out that well due to the surge.  Then we pretty much headed straight in.  I think the whole dive ended up being under an hour.

It was low low tide when we got back to the ramp.  In fact, I think we pretty much hit low tide right on.  As I mentioned before, there was a moderate but long period swell, which was causing a lot of water churning at the bottom of the ramp.  But I felt like if I waited and timed it right, it wouldn't be a problem.  But I wasn't being very patient about waiting and timing it right, so I found myself with one fin off, holding onto a little chunk of kelp at the bottom of the ramp (hoping it wouldn't break) as I got pushed to-and-fro by the next big set.  As this was going on, Clinton was on my right, pretty far off to the side of the ramp, where there is that big flat rock.  I thought it was a bit weird that he was so far off to the side (turns out he'd been dragged there by a wave), but didn't have time to give it much thought before he got picked up by a wave, dragged all the way across the ramp, and deposited on his back on the other side of the ramp.  Then another little wave came and stood him up against the rocks at the bottom of the ramp there.  So he was basically out of the water, sitting on a rock, with his tanks against rocks and his feet on the ramp.  Not a bad way to end up, but a very bad way to get there!  I asked if he was okay (not that I was really in any position to help him!) and he said yes.  My little kelp handle eventually broke and I decided to back off of the ramp, and wait for a lull.  Clinton caught his breath and then decided to walk up the ramp, and about three steps into it, he completely wiped out on the ramp.  I was still not really in a position to help, which was okay, since Clinton was completely out of the water and not in any danger, but obviously needed to eventually get himself up off of the ramp.  Luckily there was another diver in a wetsuit that was able to come down the ramp and give him a hand up.  Oh, and all of that happened while Clinton had his camera, which amazingly survived unscathed!  I, on the other hand, was a little bit traumatized and afraid of the ramp after watching all of this unfold.  After at least one more false start of me trying to exit and then getting washed off of the ramp by a wave, I was still trying to wait it out for a lull when Clinton came back down the ramp to help me.  Maybe not so much waiting it out as being beached on the ramp by a wave.  At this point I gave up on grace, and just got on my knees and let Clinton take my fins off, stand me up, and walk me up the ramp.  Phew.  We waited for a while for Rob to finish up his dive, and as we watched the ramp, we kept marveling at how much calmer it seemed at the bottom of the ramp now that we were out of the water :P

While we were waiting for the others in the water, a guy who used to dive in the area was chatting with us in the parking lot about our dive, and the diving at Lobos in general.  Then he asked if we'd "heard about this" and showed us the latest issue of the Point Lobos magazine, which had the Clinton's picture of the whale that we saw in the sand channel.  We laughed and told him that yes, we had, because we were the ones who had seen the whale and it was Clinton's picture.  After a bit of discussion about the whale sighting, he asked us to autograph the magazine.  Hehehe.

We were eventually just about to give up on waiting for them and head to RG, when they surfaced.  Eventually we all made it to RG for some lunch.

Clinton and I were both pretty meh about the dive afterward, though now that I've written it up, there were a couple of cool finds.  And plenty of ramp drama to make for a story (at Clinton's expense).

Note: Clinton pointed out that my original post was missing some story-worthy details (bad kitty!), so I've edited this a bit.

Lunaticos

Photo by Clinton Bauder

It had been quite a while since I was last on the Escapade, but finally I was on a trip, and it wasn't cancelled by weather.  We got a sort of rocky start, however, because of a problem with the boat.  Jim was in the engine room for a while, and there were voltmeters and discussions of batteries and alternators.  Eventually, the trip was called off, and much of the gear was unloaded.  Then, after further discussion, a few of us decided that we could go out for a recreational dive in the bay, and started loading the appropriate gear onto the boat for that.  Then, after a phone consult with a mechanic, Jim resolved the issue and the trip was back on.  Phew.  So then gear had to be loaded back onto the boat.  We finally got going, I think a little bit before 10.

Rob had brought his camera down, with the wide-angle port, because Clinton was going to loan him his lens (Rob's lens was destroyed in the great camera flood of February).  But Clinton forgot the lens, doh!  So still no camera on this dive :(  I've snarfed a few of Clinton's pictures from the dive, in the interest of having some eye candy in the post.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

I thought the forecast looked not so bad, or at least not bad enough that I thought to take any bonine the night before.  However, it turned out to be a bit snotty.  We made it down to Carmel, but only to Lunaticos.  I was definitely feeling not awesome while we waited for everyone to be ready to jump, but apparently Rob was feeling even more not awesome, since he requested a bucket, and then used the bucket a few times.  And then we got into the water.  The visibility was stellar; the water was very clear and it was also very bright all the way to the bottom.  It's been a while since I've been to Lunaticos, and I don't know if we dropped in a different spot than usual, or if we were just all being totally oblivious to the direction we were going, but for some weird reason, it seemed like we spent most of the dive trying to find our way to the deep part.  And never finding it :)

In pursuit of the deep area, we crossed sand and found lots of little side pinnaclets.  Overall, aside from the stellar viz, and a few good finds, it was a sort of boring dive.  The good finds included a bunch of wolf eels, including one that was out in the open (!), and a Tochuina tetraquetra.  But in terms of the reef, a lot of the structures were just kind of barren, I suspect from the barnacle invasion.  There just weren't as many patches that were covered in Corynactis, bursting with color.  Not a lot of fish either, especially rockfish, really just a few blue rockfish here and there.  There were a far number of lingcod though.  And to top it all off, even the gorgonians seemed kind of spindly and anemic.  We did see some vase sponges, but none of the really big ones.  When we got back to the main pinnacle on our way up, I did find one vertical patch of wall that was extremely colorful, completely covered in Corynactis and sponges.  So I suppose not all hope is lost :)  While I was looking at that patch, a curious sea lion came zipping by too.  I guess that was the spot to be in.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

Not much happened on deco, other than my being rather cold.  I guess that's to be expected with such excellent visibility.  Since it was a bit on the rough side, and even more on the cold side, we decided to skip a second dive, and just headed back to the dock.  We went to lunch at the pub at the dock.  We sat outside on the sunny side, which I didn't even know existed... I didn't realize there was a second outdoor seating area.  We were staying in Monterey for the night, so since I didn't have to drive home, I made the unusual choice to have a beer.  I guess Jim was bored, so he convinced me to have a second beer with him.  So I spent the rest of the afternoon regretting my choice to have two beers in the middle of the day.

Night Dive at the Breakwater

Our boat plans for the weekend were cancelled due to weather (that seems to be happening a lot recently!), so we decided to go for a night dive at the Breakwater.  It was me, Rob, Kevin, and Matt.  Due to some convoluted logistics, Rob needed to come down to Monterey earlier in the day, so I ended up riding down with Matt.  It was still light out when we got there, but Rob and Kevin were both running late, so by the time everyone was there, it was getting dark.  It was super crowded at the Breakwater, probably the most crowded I've ever seen it for a night dive before.  For one thing, there were several classes doing a night dive (including an AWS class, so we ran into Frank).  Before Rob and Kevin showed up, I pointed out to Matt that there was no way that the four of us could pull off a simple Breakwater dive without any shenanigans.  He didn't really understand what I meant.

Rob finally appeared, and Kevin appeared just a moment later.  Enter the shenanigans.  Kevin asked us if we were scootering.  I asked why we would be scootering for a night dive at the Breakwater.  Then he said he was bringing his scooter, because he just replaced the shaft seal and wanted to test it out :)  Anyhoo, once we got dressed and geared up, it was dark, and the surface of the water looked like a discotheque, with all of the flashing lights from divers.  As we entered the water, I somehow fell behind (as always), and noticed that only one of my buddies both noticed that I was behind and stopped to wait for me.  My mask was a bit foggy, so I couldn't clearly discern who the figure in the red drysuit was (Rob or Matt), but once I caught up to him, I saw that it was Matt.  Of course.  We swam out to the usual drop area, and descended into decent viz.

It was a pretty lively night from the critter-peeping perspective.  It was really unfortunate that no one had a camera (Rob had just picked his housing up from Backscatter before the dive, but didn't bring it along).  I brought my hero-cam, of course, but I decided it wasn't worth the effort to bring along the video reflector for my light.  So I ended up doing a bit of defocused-can-light lighting (actually Rob did most of the lighting for me), which worked out alright.  We saw a couple of squid, which weren't terribly active, though perhaps that was because they were traumatized by my light.  There were also a variety of interesting slugs, including Pleurobranchaea californica (the side-gilled one), Onchidoris bilamellata (the barnacle-eater), Aeolidia papillosa (the shaggy mouse), and Matt even found a Cuthona divae!  And of course there were tons of little red octopus scooting and slithering around on the sand.

We spent most of the dive over the sand, but then we eventually headed over to the wall to follow that in.  We kind of ended up running parallel to the wall for a bit, so we didn't run into it until we were quite shallow.  When we did, we found quite a few rockfish, including a bocaccio.  A good find, but still not the highlight of the dive... soon we were being tailed by a frisky harbor seal, who was apparently using our lights to hunt.  He was VERY friendly, and some of us may have even given him a belly rub (at his insistence of course).  We played with him for a while, and then eventually headed in.