The little things that matter
Published on 2014-04-20 09:23:43
Saturday SOCDC dive at Crescent Bay was not that great. Conditions were relatively poor, visibility in the 10ft range, sometimes slightly better, sometimes less. Not a lot of big stuff that I enjoy the most: no sea lion checking you out, no leopard sharks cruising around and taking off in a flurry when they hear the bubbles out of the regulator, no giant sea bass completely uninterested in divers, no great white either, not that I really look forward to *that* encounter.
None of that.
Just a few nudibranchs, a massive sculpin, a couple of lobster, lots of sheephead, schools of blacksmiths. Not much.
Or is it really?
As I was cruising around on this dive, trying to find a subject worthy enough for me to risk loosing the rest of the group while shooting the perfect angle and finding really nothing, I started to reflect on how lucky we are that there *are* still stuff around in this part of the ocean. Little things. A kelp forest that's getting better and denser every day, schools of little fish finding refuge in the blades of the giant algae, bigger fish smart enough to hunt the smaller ones which think they're well hidden, garibaldis everywhere making the reef full of colors, senioritas always ready to lend a "hand" in guiding divers wherever they go, crabs, eels, octopus. All the little things that we take for granted on each dive.
They are here.
On other parts of the ocean, they are gone.
I dove the Mediterranean last year and did not see any fish. Just infinite extent of posidoni grass.
I will be diving the Caribbean in a few months and I don't expect to be blown away by schools of barracudas or grunts. I will certainly enjoy the colorful reef, but I'm pretty sure I won't find cracks full of lobsters and crabs like here at home.
So as I was swimming in the pea soup, hoping for more, I realized I had plenty. And the dive suddenly got better.
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