The hunt for the croakers begins...

Another nice weekend down here in Avalon. Friday we took the King Neptune out on a day trip for 6 divers. We had great weather and lots of sun. We headed west and stopped first at Hen Rock. From the deck of the boat you could see the bottom at 80 feet. It was amazing visibility. While the divers swam away from the boat, we soaked some squid hoping to catch some dinner. With the full moon coming and things starting to warm up, both on the surface and in the water, we are hearing reports of white seabass in the area so Ryan (the boat Captain) and I thought we should investigate further. Prior to our departure from Avalon, we traded out some fruit and sandwiches to the bait boat guys for a scoop of lively squid. It’s always interesting taking the net from the bait barge when it’s full of squid as they squirt ink at you and spit water angrily until they are placed back onboard the Neptune’s bait tank. Throughout the day our divers continued to enjoy themselves but we had no luck with the whities. During our second stopover, near Torqua Springs, Ryan spotted a bald eagle perched high up the hillside. I went into the wheelhouse and got the binoculars so we could all have a closer look. As soon as everyone had a good look, the eagle soared away from its perch and flew slowly to the west, right on cue. All day we were surrounded by sea lions, they seem to be everywhere at the moment. They are constantly rolling on the surface as the dive down, presumably to catch some baitfish for lunch. All in all, a brilliant day.

Saturday morning I had the pleasure of doing an introduction dive with a very eager 12 year old. She was awesome. Fired up from the moment she got in the shop, she couldn’t wait to hit the water. Of course we had to do the preliminary paperwork but managed to get into the water relatively quickly. People like her make what I’m doing now so much fun. Her enthusiasm is matched by her desire to learn and do it right, a perfect combination to becoming a good diver. On introduction dives, people are required to perform some very basic skills in order to proceed to the open water tour portion of the dive. She nailed all of her skills and we were off to explore the kelp forest. As we swam through the thick stalks of kelp, she pointed constantly at different animals. She will be a little hawk underwater someday, finding seahorses and frogfish at will no doubt. The absolute best part of the dive for me was while I was swimming backward at one point so I could keep an eye on her, my tank valve was wrapped up by some kelp. As I spun around and started to clear it away and free myself, this little fish chick swam up, signed for me to stay still, calmly unwrapped the kelp, and then flashed me a big OK signal with a smile. Simply astounding. 12 years old on her first diving experience and she is assisting her instructor to get disentangled. So cool. I only wish her and her family were able to stay longer so I could actually do the entire class for her and certify her. I’m sure by the end of the course she would have been teaching me!

This morning I took some people out on a snorkel tour through the kelp. They were great people, living in Florida and good divers. They were flying home today so they weren’t able to scuba but they wanted to snorkel and see the kelp forest. So they braved the 60 degree water to follow me through the dive park. Since they are experienced divers, we took along some weight belts so we could do some actual freediving. We ended up taking too much weight for both of them because I mistakenly assumed they would be wearing 7 mm wetsuits but oh no, they only had on 3 mm. I didn’t realize that the shop had rented them 3’s and I overweighted them (for those that don’t know, when you wear a 7 mm you are much more buoyant at the surface and need more weight to descend for scuba or freediving). Since I was wearing a 7 I took the excess weight and spent the rest of the trip wearing 25 lbs of weight. Lots of fun. Let’s just say I got my workout for the day treading water in between freedives to stay afloat. Also swimming back up with that much weight is no easy task with 50 feet of seawater crushing down on you. Lesson learned for next tour.

That’s it for now. Tomorrow I will dive the Valiant in the morning. A 163’ yacht that sank in 1930. After that I’m going to take the dinghy west and see if I can’t have some luck with a speargun hunting the white seabass. The moon is almost full so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. While I was freediving today I heard coming from the kelp the croaking sound the seabass make so I know they are out here.

My new buddy...