We boarded the dive boat "Great Escape" at 10 p.m. Saturday with about 25 other divers in Long Beach Harbor. After lugging all our SCUBA gear and sleeping bags onto the boat, we claimed our bunks and checked in with the divemaster. We knew we had to get our rest for the next day, so I snuggled down into my sleeping bag and began reading The Devil's Teeth : A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks... maybe not the best book to read before going diving...
At about 1:00 a.m. the boat started our 57 nautical-mile journey toward San Clemente Island, the most southern of the Channel Islands. Most of the time, dive boats don't make it out to San Clemente Is. due to rough seas or the military doing some kind of testing out at the island, so we couldn't get our hopes up too much about reaching our destination... we had the possibility of waking up off Catalina (which wouldn't be too bad, but San Clemente's diving is supposed to be even better).
The boat anchored at about 110 ft. depth at the south-east tip of the island near Pyramid Rock; sea lions and dolphins were jumping out of the water everywhere. Bryan and I hit the water by 7:00 a.m. and had a great dive-- the visibility was about 70 feet (amazing for California!), the kelp forests were healthy, and fish were abundant.
The rock formations were so complex that it felt like we were doing a wall dive. The water was a bit on the chilly side (56 degrees) but my 7 mil suit and hood kept me plenty warm.
Our second dive was further north along the coast. This was my first dive with an underwater camera.
(Thank you Bryan for one of my favorite Christmas presents, ever!) Being able to take pictures of the amazing animals and capture the experience really made diving 100% better!!! We got a couple good pictures of some lobster, and a nice one of a juvenile garibaldi (state fish of California).
I took so many pictures I filled up my memory card after one dive! So, between the second and third dives I had to delete some of my pics so I could take more at our last dive—at Little Flower.
We’d made friends with another couple, Kimberly and Brian from Orange County, and at the last dive Kim opted out because she was cold (a lot of people were cold). So, Brian asked us if he could buddy dive with us. The last dive site was probably the best. Tons of fish—garibaldi, blacksmiths, opal eyes, senoritas, kelp bass, sheephead, topsmelt, surfperch … even a couple of swell sharks.
Swell shark
I captured a nice photo of a Navanax inermis, a type of sea slug.
Blue Banded Gobies with a Sea Urchin
On our way home we played cribbage (an old sailor’s card game) with our new friends. It made the 6-hour boat ride go by quicker!
At about 4:30, we saw thousands of bottlenose dolphins jumping in the ocean around the boat. About 20-30 of them swam along the bow for about 5 minutes… it was AWESOME!
The sunset was beautiful, we had a wonderful day!!
Happy Divers 
(but exhausted!!)
(but exhausted!!)
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