The Sunday dive day in Laguna was great!
Met up at 7 am with Robert Phillips, Freidrich and Headhunter (Christian) at north Crescent Bay. As we were finished gearing up, Snakedr (Dave) and Drjet (Ruben) pulled up as well. Conditions looked good and we made the long surface swim to Deadman's reef. I only said "are we there yet?" once! Viz was about 10-15 as we dropped in 65 ft, and drifted past Deadman's I believe. We signaled to surface, reoriented and dropped down at Deadman's. There was a bit of surge in places, but not bad at all. I saw several lobster, a few that looked keeping size. The usual suspects and a lot of sheepshead as was noted in another dive report. It was fun exploring the rocks.
After a longish SI, Robert, Christian, Dave and I headed to the Pinnacles/Seal Rock. Robert took us through the "Land of the Attack Garibaldi" and I had several pecking at my regulator, mask and light. I left the camera on shore for this dive, so of course also saw a nice moray, several more lobster, and an octopus. The viz was somewhat better on this dive in spots, I thought. Ruben met us at our cars with large Diedrichs coffees to warm us up!
That dive was so nice we called Jetfixer (Todd) to tell him the night dive was ON. Took tanks to Laguna Sea Sports (happy birthday Laura) for fills and had lunch at Husky Boy burgers. Then we headed down to Heisler Park to check out the site for the November Wrinkles dive. Relaxed in the park and watched a gorgeous sunset through the clouds with Catalina in the background!
Todd arrived, Starbucks for all in hand
and we decided to do Diver's Cove for the night dive. Christian was surface support and had a great map of the site. With Dave leading, Todd, Ruben and I headed out and proceeded to end up pretty much on TOP of the reef in some wicked surge at times, up to 5 feet back and forth. This is the first time I have ever felt a bit seasick underwater, lol! Saw several octupii, lobster roaming around and in holes, baby sea hares, sea and bat stars, etc. I counted myself lucky not to have collided with any urchins on that dive! We of course compared lights and Dave won. Plus he did a great job of navigating us back to our entry point!
When we got to the top of the stairs Christian kindly pointed out where we had been (in some of the wrong places) so we could learn for next time. We headed over to Gina's Pizza for some post dive replenishment, it was GREAT!
Thanks to:
* Robert for being a great guide and lending me a tank!
* Ruben for coffee and congratulations on your first night dive!
* Dave for being a good buddy and navigator!
* Todd for being enthusiastic about a night dive so that I stuck around for the fun!
* Christian for being a good buddy and for the surface support!
* Ann Marie for recommending Gina's Pizza!
It was also nice to meet Scubaxris and Laura, hope to dive with you guys sometime. Scot M, you missed some fun but it sounds like you had a great day anyway!
I have no good UW photos but tons of sunset pics!
jennifer
