Well, today was an excellent diving day. 
After yesterday's downpour, we didn't have very high hopes, so we were pleasantly surprised when we arrived in Avalon to sunny skies (well, partly cloudy) and clear-looking seas.
We went on the King Neptune, and got our second pleasant surprise of the day - only 9 people on board! Nice and roomy.
The visibility was definitely better than it's been all year - I'd guess 50-70 feet in all three sites (Italian Gardens, Red Rock Quarry, and Torqua Springs). I'd forgotten how beautiful it can be out here when the sun is filtering down through the kelp. When the sun was out, it was absolutely amazing down there.
There were also huge clouds of baby blacksmiths everywhere.. little blue and yellow things flitting all around. Very pretty. We spotted a school of yellowtail cruising around Torqua Springs, and saw several humongous black sea bass at Italian Gardens. I'd never seen them before, so even though I knew they were big it was kind of a shock to see one coming at me! This fish was huge! (and I later heard that it actually wasn't, and many much larger ones have been seen! ) They checked us out briefly, but I guess we weren't too interesting because they didn't hang around. Unfortunately, the sun was behind a cloud at this point, so it was kind of dim and gray - would have been cool to see them in sunlight!
Overall, a great day, and I'm hoping we can squeeze in a couple more Catalina trips before the conditions head downhill again!
After yesterday's downpour, we didn't have very high hopes, so we were pleasantly surprised when we arrived in Avalon to sunny skies (well, partly cloudy) and clear-looking seas.We went on the King Neptune, and got our second pleasant surprise of the day - only 9 people on board! Nice and roomy.
The visibility was definitely better than it's been all year - I'd guess 50-70 feet in all three sites (Italian Gardens, Red Rock Quarry, and Torqua Springs). I'd forgotten how beautiful it can be out here when the sun is filtering down through the kelp. When the sun was out, it was absolutely amazing down there.
There were also huge clouds of baby blacksmiths everywhere.. little blue and yellow things flitting all around. Very pretty. We spotted a school of yellowtail cruising around Torqua Springs, and saw several humongous black sea bass at Italian Gardens. I'd never seen them before, so even though I knew they were big it was kind of a shock to see one coming at me! This fish was huge! (and I later heard that it actually wasn't, and many much larger ones have been seen! ) They checked us out briefly, but I guess we weren't too interesting because they didn't hang around. Unfortunately, the sun was behind a cloud at this point, so it was kind of dim and gray - would have been cool to see them in sunlight!
Overall, a great day, and I'm hoping we can squeeze in a couple more Catalina trips before the conditions head downhill again!
