Every year the local diving community around Los Angeles raises funds for the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. This is "Chamber Day".

During that one-day event, local dive boats donate their time and our money to the chamber, but we, the divers still get to dive. For a good cause. For our own peace of mind (because you never know when you will need the chamber).

The event takes place in May. Unfortunately this year, the usually calm seas of Southern California did not cooperate (they were pissed off at Fukishima or BP or something) and we had to reschedule. To yesterday.

So I played hooky on Wednesday and went diving instead of the office.

That was a wise choice.

Conditions outside were perfect. Sunny and not too warm. That's important because I dive dry on boats, and if it's sunny and hot, my dry suit becomes a Turkish sauna and it's fairly uncomfortable.

Conditions under were far from optimal. Visibility was in the low 15ft which is terrible in Catalina but not unusual in June. The high season for us starts in October and ends in February...

Our first dive was at "Blue Caverns". We found two caverns at around 80ft but apparently missed the main one. In one of them, I spotted the largest Hypselodoris californiensis (or Felimare californiensis by its new name) I had ever seen. Must have been an Alpha slug (can't say  alpha male for slugs because they are hermaphroditic). Macro Tv 1/125 + flash did OK. Had to reduce sometimes to 1/80 due to very poor ambient light conditions.

Second dive was at "Sea Fan Grotto" and there again the visibility was in the low 15ft. Not much to report, some sea cucumber porn (nice shot of its butt hole or mouth below), a couple of eels, including one that modeled for all photographers in the group... Same conditions = same camera settings.

The last dive saved the day.

We dove "Bird Rock", an outcrop not far off the coast, covered in bird poop (hence the name).

Bird Rock is usually an OK dive, but nothing to die for, so I was not really prepared.

Pre dive, I asked for "a dive with the sea lions". I love these guys.

I was diving with the editor of OCDiving and gosh, she knows these reefs, and delivered: after a 20 minutes swim through crevices and walls covered with lobsters, we ended up in the shallows and the sea lions started coming. And coming. And coming. They were buzzing everywhere. I don't know how many there was but it was not unusual to have 3 or 4 with us at the same time. The coolest thing is that it was all for our group of three divers. Other groups reported similar encounters so the whole sea lion colony must have decided to greet the underwater anomalies that we are.

Sea lions are fast. Like, light speed fast. I had the camera set to 1/250s no flash and I was still getting blurs. At 1/320s it was a little better but slightly darker... I ended shooting video.

Among the myriad of butt shots, flippers shots, big dark blur shots, half body shots and just blue water shots because by the time the trigger actually triggered, the damn animal was long gone, I still managed a couple of cool portraits, even though the light conditions were terrible: lots of sun and lots of particulates in the water at very low depth = recipe for flares and back-scatter...

Oh well... Enjoy, I certainly did.