A month or so ago I asked GPT-3, the most powerful textual AI in the world to generate a dive report for me based on the  one I posted last December. It was quite fun, it started like this:   

"I left the house earlier than usual on Sunday morning, the plan was to get there as early as possible. I was so excited driving to the beach that I forgot to stop by the local Starbucks, but that's okay, there was one on the way. I got there just before 8am and it felt like I had the place to myself, not a single soul was there and the parking lot was pretty empty. I was planning to dive the Big Rock and the Prom, so I needed to get my gear together and find a buddy. I was lucky enough to have a dive buddy already lined up and when I called him he was on his way."   

Scary ain't it?  It went for 10 pages and was kind of weird and seemed to take place somewhere in Australia. Now I dove the Great Barrier Reef in 1995 when it was still healthy, but I doubt GPT-3 knew that. Or did it? Spooky.  

So  anyway, back to today, it's Friday, I took a day off to go diving 'cause you know, Summer is here and the beach gets packed on weekends, better off on a weekday! And better it was for sure. Showed up at 9am to a deserted Crescent Circle, checked the surf down the stairs: 3ft max, mostly nothing. Lake Laguna. 

Back at the car in no time, got dressed, struggled with the back zipper, asked a runner to help  zip me up, runner zipped me down. Oh well.

Water looked pretty clear from the beach and was OK going in. Viz was mostly 10-15ft on the reef, maybe more in the kelp patch. It was very dark in the kelp, meaning it's healthy and dense. Good thing! I did not see any Sargassum, great news!

Water temp was a balmy 63F (17°C) and I found a small abalone! Small means they are young and finding them show that the protection they get in the MPA is actually working and that they reproduce. Mine was about 10cm, which according to our local marine biologist and abalone defender    means it was about 5 years old. Abalone can live up to 40 years, so yes, it was just a kid! The funny thing is as I was filming it, a big one showed up on top! Lay off my sister mister! I had never seen an abalone walk that fast, even when we feed them kelp! Fast & Furious 10: abalone racers!

Since it was pretty cool at Crescent, I decided to go check out Shaw's Cove nearby. Drove in full 7mm (wet) wetsuit, it was hard enough to put it on once, not gonna do it twice in one morning... Did not check the surf, assumed it would be even lower than Crescent. It was. 

Nothing very special except that the Garibaldis are in rut again and that the reef was covered in Spanish Shawls. Surge was brutal, so it was a little challenging to videotape or photograph. Shelly had four or five on her, and kelp is actually growing off her head! Yay! I also saw two California Blue Dorids (Felimare californiensis). They are supposed to be rare in these waters. Not anymore. Temperature at Shaw's was colder at depth, going down to a chilly 57F (14°C). The end of the reef at 50ft now has very few tubular anemones. I counted three, one in bad shape. I was freezing my nuts so I did not look for them much though, but there used to be a lot there.

All in all, two pretty good dives, with decent visibility for the season, it was actually improving when I ended my second dive with probably 25ft in the crevice.

I shot most of my kelp sunbursts in Tv 1/400s-1/800s to get the rays, and the rest in Program mode. With two 800 lumens external lights, my rig still qualify for compact; it's a little harder to get in the cracks but I don't have to worry about my damn flash and backscatter anymore. Progress.