Two weeks ago I went diving  with the peeps of South Orange County Dive Club and forgot my camera. Bummer, I hate getting old. And it's only the beginning they tell me... Anyway, I was ready for sharks, whales and dolphins, they usually show up when I don't have a camera to immortalize the encounter. I got the shark (small, but still a shark), I got the dolphins cruising far ahead of us, I got the millions of lobsters that seem to know that Laguna Beach is now a protected area, I got the harbor seal checking on us out and deciding to stick around until we surfaced, and even surfaced with me and showed its big puppy smiley face for a while until it decided we were not that of a fun crowd and took off, and I got the flu. No whales though. Maybe another time. 

So this week end, I made sure the camera was packed first in the car and that the flu symptoms were in check (thanks Sudafed) and I headed down to Laguna Beach for another SOCDC Saturday dive. In this day of February, we had a balmy 75F, a flat ocean and a viz that looked pretty awesome from the top of the stairs at Cleo St where the group had decided to head for a dive to the barge a few hundred yards off the shore.

After a long swim at the surface and another 10 minute swim at the bottom, we hit the barge at around 35fsw. It's a rather flat wreck, you can't enter it as there's really nothing to enter. It's been sitting there for half a century (it sunk in 1958) and it's covered with life. There was a small school of blacksmiths patrolling the wreck, a big octopus that was changing color as I was trying to get its attention, quite a few lobsters, some in the open, most in cracks, as well as sheepheads and bass. The structure hosts a few strawberry anemones, gorgonian sea fans and a few big tube anemones. All around, the kelp forest makes a thick barrier to light, so visibility was probably in the 10-15ft. On the way back at around 20fsw, I stopped for a few shots in the kelp, the sun was shining through the canopy and it was gorgeous... Except that I noticed something that looked like an invasion of Sargassum... Not a good sign. At the same time, it may have been boa kelp or something similar, I'm not really good at algae ID... I also saw a small baby ray which took off in a sand flurry before I could take the shot and our fearless leader reported sighting a couple of bottlenose dolphins. With no picture to prove the amazing find, most of us concluded a serious case of low-depth nitrogen narcosis (the worst kind).

As far as pictures go, the poor viz on the wreck called for macro. I tried to shoot at 1/40th no flash "inside" the barge where there was nice rays of light from other divers' lights. The result is... well... not that great. It could have been great though, it just did not turn out so well. Shortly after, I spotted that massive octopus and  took a few pictures of it, not realizing  I was still shooting very slow... It was not as bad as I had feared though, nothing a good sharpening filter can't correct in post-prod! For the kelp sunburst, I still shot shutter speed priority but boosted it to 1/250th to capture the sun rays.

South Laguna is really getting good, I really enjoy these dive sites that I had neglected in the past few years. I am thinking of going again this week end. See you there!