Last Friday, my buddy convinced me to take time off work and go diving Catalina Island on the Magician. With epic conditions reported every day, I was not very hard to convince.

I did not even hesitated when I packed my gear. With water temperature in the mid 70's,  the dry-suit stayed in the closet.

The crossing was uneventful and the nice thing with weekday diving, we had the boat almost for ourselves. The Magician usually takes 20-25 divers. We had 14 on board. Luxury cruise!

We dove Blue Cavern, Bird Rock and Sea Fan Grotto. Visibility exceeded 100ft at Bird Rock, but our warm waters and the terrible sargassum invasion have wiped out the kelp and all of the ecosystem that comes with it. It was like diving the Caribbean, great visibility but not much to see...

The caverns were nice, with a lot of colorful sea fans and beautiful show of light. It was almost like diving the Cenotes! But shooting that was tricky. You need to shoot fast to capture the rays of light but in a cave, it's not optimal because of the ambient darkness. Boosting the ISO to 1,600 or so helps but makes the pictures very grainy.  

The rest can be shot Tv 1/125, forced flash, macro mode for close up and Tv 1/250+ for wide angle. Sunburst at 1/1250s still show overexposed!

And the cute story-less video!