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...

I'm back...finally

So I'm back. The last year has flown by and I can't believe it has been that long since I have sat down and wrote anything. Basically sometime in April of last year my laptop stopped working while I was in Bonaire and I didn't get it fixed until late in the year when I had returned to California. Starting just after my last post I did a divemaster internship in Bonaire that culminated in early June when I became a diving instructor. Right after that I visited home for two weeks, returned to Bonaire and started teaching diving. What a life it was. Good friends, good diving, and ok beer. I feel like I could write a book about all the crazy times and experiences just from that little rock. I was forced to leave in early October due to the fact that I had become an illegal immigrant. Really. I had overstayed my visa and because I had not formally obtained a work permit I needed to return to California. It sucked to leave because I had made so many good friends and was really enjoying diving there but no worries, I will return someday.

So after I came home late last year, I started looking around at different options. While I was idling I was able to stay with my sister and her family and spent some amazing time with my loved ones. It was great to live with my nieces for a while and get to see them everyday and tuck them into bed. I really needed that time. I'm very lucky to have such a great family. So late in January I contacted a dive shop in Catalina and after catching the ferry over from Long Beach I was able to get a job teaching for the summer season and staying on the diveboat. It worked out perfect and I couldn't wait to get over here. Then a week later I met an amazing woman and spent two really great months getting to know her. We both knew from the start that I was coming here but she was totally supportive and I couldn't ask for a better partner. So the day finally came when I had to say goodbye to my family and friends and head south again, back to sea.

I've been on the island now for going on 3 weeks and it has already been one adventure after another. We left onboard the Prowler, a 44 foot sportfisher out of Marina Del Rey that belongs to one of my Dad's buddies. It's an awesome boat and I am grateful to Leon for giving me a lift over here. I was able to bring my spearfishing kayak and my dinghy over so that was killer. I moved onto the diveboat and the next day my girl arrived. The plan was to spend my first week on the island together with her, doing some camping and hiking and getting used to diving here. She braved 60 degree water with me for a week and completed her Open Water course so now I have a hot blonde for a dive buddy. Sweet huh? Of course, our week finally had to end and she had to go back to the mainland but we had a great time. Since she took off I have immersed myself in trying to learn the new boat I'm on and all the ins and outs at the dive shop. I have managed to get a little work in but the island is still slow. I'm ready for it to pick up. In my spare time I have been cruising around to different dive spots and doing fun dives on my own. I'm trying to toughen myself up to the water temp. I grew up freediving here but I have become a spoiled sissy from diving in 80 degrees for the past couple of years. It's getting easier though. The white seabass are showing up so we have the spears out and as soon as this weather we have passes on, it will be early morning hunting for the croakers. Last weekend we had a few full days of technical diving off the boat which was super cool. We did deep dives on Ship Rock on Friday and then Saturday we were off to a secret set of GPS numbers where a squid fishing trawler sank about 4 years ago. It's 165 feet so it's not really that deep but it was a great dive. I did it twice on Saturday using a single tank and was able to get the helm out of the wheelhouse. It's a great dive and I'm looking forward to being able to explore it properly with a bunch of bottles so we can have lots of bottom time.

The day before yesterday was incredible. Early in the afternoon I was going to head into town and I walked out on deck to get into my dinghy and found that I had a surprise guest. A sea lion pup had pulled itself up on the skiff and was enjoying a nice nap in the sunshine. It was just snoring away. I popped a few pics of the little dude. When I got into the boat he barked at me but stayed in for a little while as I headed towards town. He finally jumped off and I had to laugh. What a trip. But then later in the afternoon, I decided to make a dive before sunset so I zipped around to the east and dropped into the water. As soon as I descended a pair of dolphins rocketed right past me. It was truly awesome. I have snorkeled with dolphins before but I had never seen them while on scuba. Less than a minute into the dive and it was already bad ass. Then during my cruising around I found two sailboat wrecks. One in 60 feet and one in 30 feet that is really eerie looking because all the running rigging is floating around it and kelp is growing around the entire hull. I peered through one of the holes in the hull and found a bunch of lobsters hiding in there so you can bet that when lobster season rolls around, I will be diving there again. After an hour I surfaced and climbed back on board my dinghy. This crazy looking dude came up in a really shitty old skiff and introduced himself as "Skooter". He was just staring at me and smoking a cigarette. I asked if he was alright and he asked me "how do you like my dog?" I looked to where he was pointing and in his lap was a freaking sea lion pup. He was petting it like a dog. It was nuts. He said he woke up in his boat and the thing was inside. It had climbed up the rear and into his cabin. So the kook was taking it back into town to see if the Harbor Patrol guys would take it. As he pulled away, the thing dove off his boat and swam to mine and jumped aboard. He literally climbed over my dive gear and onto my lap. It was nuzzling me and staring at me with big brown eyes. I couldn't believe it. We got it back onto his boat and the thing did it again. After offloading it a second time, Skooter sped off towards town. I was talking in town with some people and it seems that maybe a couple of pups have been left behind or lost from their family and are freaking out here in the harbor. We'll see what happens with that.

So for now that's it. I will start posting as things happen. I have a couple of dive boat trips this weekend so I will try and get some pics up from that. I'm waiting for the nice weather to return so I can do some hiking into the interior of the island. Right this moment, we are getting hammered with gale force winds and it's cold. Sucks. Come on sunshine.