Dive #5
Bottomed @ 40′, dive time 30min. Visibility was 15-17 feet. 28lbs of weight. 75* air, 69* surface, 58* bottom. 3100-1200psi.

It was Jenna, Liz and me, all of our first time out on our own after getting certified. We headed straight out from Vallecito turn around @ Shores. Doing a real surf entry was pretty interesting since it was our first time. Figured out it helps to have your BCD completely deflated until you’re in water too deep to touch bottom, or else you’ll get carried in on each wave instead of pushing through it. We did a pretty long surface swim straight out from shore before we dropped down. NOTE: you really should never dive w/o a compass. It makes for swimming underwater almost pointless if you’re trying to get somewhere, like the canyon. Just cruised along for a little bit before the bottom started to slope steeply. Probably part of the canyon edge, but we weren’t really sure. It was still fine sand on the bottom. Jenna had some problems equalizing more, so we swam parallel to the dropoff and explored. Saw some smaller sand dabs (nothing like Monterey) and a few pretty impressive sand dollar fields. After that point, I realized that sometime my D40 in it’s case had somehow come off my arm and floated to the surface (thank goodness for positive buoyancy). I tried to explain to the other two that I had lost my camera and was going to surface to look for it. Apparently, they understood this as “hey, take a picture of me while I float up”. Jenna obliged and there’s a nice photo of me ascending, but other than that it was a fail. I found the camera ~30yard away floating in some kelp. Couldn’t find the other two after that, so just hung out @ the surface. They popped up ~4 min later laughing hard. As it turns out, a giant black seabass gave them a quick buzz and scared them a bit. Long swim back in, but surfing the waves was pretty fun.

Wildlife: sanddabs (Citharichthys sp.); sand dollars (Dendraster excentricus?); giant sea bass (Stereolepis gigas