Today, like every Saturday (weather permitting) the South Orange County Dive Club had their beach dive in Laguna Beach. Conditions were reported not great anywhere, a quick check of Mountain where seven-gill sharks sightings have been reported (and documented) came out with lots of waves and probably lots of surge. We opted for North Laguna and decided to dive Heisler Park.

At first I thought I had brought the wrong camera.

As we reached the beach in full gear, a bikini photo-shoot was going on. Mmmm. Photobomb anybody? What can they do anyway? Throw us in the water? Ah!

Our fearless leader decided to  enter the water in the middle of the creatures in not-so-small bikinis (that's the US after all). A few of us lost track of the wave patterns, focusing on other part of the beach than the swell so timing was not too perfect. We still ended up all past the surf zone with all our masks, fins and other piece of gear...

Then I thought I should have stayed on the beach.

Visibility in the surf zone was ZERO. I had to feel my feet with my hands to put my fins on! Then past the whirlpools, it opened to maybe 10 feet. Not much. Lots of surge, very strong. One of our divers bailed out because he was feeling sea sick!

Then I remembered why I love diving.

As I was closing in on the rest of the group in a not so bad visibility area, probably 15-20ft, I felt a jog in one of my fins. That was surprising because I could have sworn I was the last one in the group, so who could that be, trying to get my attention? Well, it was a massive harbor seal! It was just nipping at one of my fins! When I turned around, it looked at me with its big puppy eyes, rolled over, swam past my head and back and just disappeared in the distance. Awesome. No shot though...

Other than that, I found a few California scorpion-fish in full camouflage colors, two big sheep crabs and a couple of lobsters. I came back with about 10 pictures, needless to say, conditions were far from optimal for trigger happy photo shooters.

We all came back OK; the surf and surge had receded and the bikini-clad creatures were long gone, by the time we hit the beach. We all had to swim a few hundred yards and had to recover at the local Mexican joint around the corner. Ah...