In my never ending quest for new dive experiences I have been looking at the west coast for a few years now. But the thoughts of all the cold water just send chills all over my body. I had dived in California a few years back and still remember shaking the entire day. Granted I was only wearing neoprene, a lot of it, but neoprene none the less. In the 52 degree water the only thing that kept me from dying was the presence of some very cool Sea Lions who distracted me from the fact my body was in a constant state of thermal protest. But this time I was armed with a brand new Bare Tilaminate Dry Suit, woolies undergarment, polartec socks, a 7mm hood and cold water gloves. I was bound and determined to enjoy my three day adventure aboard the live aboard dive boat Vision and not be too cold.

        I had begged my onto this trip with a group of Rodales Scubadiving D2D Message Board divers. This was their third annual trip and after reading reports, seeing the pictures and video of the previous trips I knew this would be a trip to remember. I only knew one other person in this group, Judyg. I had met her on our Galapagos trip in 2003 and she was also on our Cozumel trip earlier this year. Judy and I also planned to extend this trip by two days and get in a few kelp bed dives, No point in coming all this way and not dive the kelp beds. Napadiver had put these trips together and has always done an awesome job and this year was no exception. Coordinating 24 divers from all over the US and Canada is no easy task but it all came off without a hitch. The divers on this trip were, listed by message board names, Deja, Seahawk, JudyG, Kestrel, MrsKestrel, BillB, Ldeweese, Peregrine, Pismodiver, Janie, OnBelayDave, Kelpgurl, Beachmike, MrsBeachMike, MikeF, Kevin, NapaDiver, Mrs. NapaDiver, Eins, Ken A, Rita, Richard, Karen, Davens and Hydrophilicity.

        This trip was a combination vacation for me. My brother and mother live in Tucson Arizona. So my plan was to fly to Tucson, spend a few days with family and attempt to survive consuming gallons of beer with my brother before continuing on the Los Angels for the dive portion of the trip. I was able to score FF tickets though Delta for this trip which certainly made it easier to justify, as if I need justification to dive. I would be on the Vision from Wednesday night until Saturday. The plan was to then head over to Long Beach where Judy and I would get on the Sundiver dive boat for a three tank trip to Catalina Island on Sunday. I would fly back to Atlanta late Monday afternoon. Now that's dive plan!!!! Unfortunately that Catalina part of the plan did not work at all, more on that later.

        The first part of the trip went pretty well. I arrived in Tucson at 9:30, was picked up by my brother and after a quick trip to my Mom's house to drop off the luggage went to the U of A vs. Wisconsin football game. I had left Atlanta right after hurricane Frances dropped 6 inches of rain on us thinking getting to the desert would be a welcome and dry change.... WRONG. About half way through the second quarter the skies got dark, thunder and lightning started getting close and then the skies opened up in a torrential downpour. They called suspended the game due to the lightning.........we adjourned to the Home Plate Bar to sit out the delay. Other than that the family visit went well, after consuming lots of good food and gallons of beer I left on Saturday for LAX and the Truth Trip.

        My flight from Tucson to Salt Lake City and then on to LAX was uneventful and even arrived early. I was pleasantly surprised when Judy found me in baggage claim. She called Laurie (Kelpgurl, who had offered us a ride) to come and get us for the ride up to Santa Barbara. It was a nice 2 hour drive in Laurie's brand new Toyota SUV which was loaded to the roof with scuba, photo and video gear. We found the restaurant where we were all to meet for dinner and settled in for a few brews before the D2D group showed up. Dinner was great as was meeting all the group. Lori had name tags for everyone so we could identify each other, a nice touch. Around 8:00 we started loading all our gear onto the Vision, our home for the next 3 nights. There was absolutely no crew on board, I found that strange, but eventually the Captain showed up and told us about what to expect. By 11:00 most of us had turned in knowing the boat would be leaving very early in the morning and once under way sleeping might be difficult, we were right. Sleeping accommodations on the Vision is one large room with three high bunk beds. We all had assigned bunks so there was no mad rush to get premier beds. I was on the bottom, the floor actually, which was fine by me. The beds were roomy and surprisingly comfortable. The boat provided a pillow and a blanket, anything extra you brought yourself. I had been warned and had brought a fleece sleeping bag to use as a bottom sheet for the plastic mattress. I went to sleep pretty quickly, but once that boat started the crossing I woke up and never really did get back to sleep. That short night's sleep took its toll the rest of the trip. By 7:00 AM I was up and more than ready for food. Each morning there was a signature breakfast offering, just sign up on the list as order what you wanted. There was also pastries, fruit and never ending coffee. We did not starve on this trip. The Truth fleet has a hands off policy as far as your diving goes. You are free to do as you please within reason and time constraints. The plan was five dives each of the first two days and three on Saturday. We held to that plan. Unfortunately the cold water and lack of sleep prevented me for having the energy to do either of the night dives.

        Since this was my first ocean dive in my dry suit I had no clue how much weight to wear. In our local lake with an aluminum 80 I have been wearing 5 pounds in addition to my Pony and the 4 pound video light battery. On this trip Ken was nice enough to lend me a steel 95 so I was thinking with the addition 4 - 6 pounds the steel tank gave me I could use the same weight...WRONG. I could barely get down but couldn't really stay there. So I popped up and got an extra 5 pounds, I probably could have used another 2 but I was able to stay on the safety stop if I made sure I got all the air out of the suit before getting to 20 feet. But enough of this stuff, let's go diving.

Dive #1: Wyckoff Ledge
Depth = 83fsw     Time = 39 min.     Vis = 25 ft.     Temp = 50º

I was more than a little apprehensive jumping into a completely new dive experience for me. When I hit the water the cold hit me pretty hard. But I think it was more that I was hot from the dry suit rather than the water being cold. Like I said above I had weighting problems on this dive. Karen was my buddy and was nice enough to follow me to the surface and help me get weighted correctly. Sorry about the short dive Karen, and thanks for your help. We did see a ton on Nudibranchs and Starfish on this dive so it wasn’t a total lose. Hey I didn’t freeze and I didn’t go up feet first. I was glad that little ordeal was over and I could now enjoy the rest of the dives.

        With all that out of the way I discovered I was a little damp inside the dry suit. I seem to have issues around the neck seal on my Bare suit. It has a warm seal which requires me rolling the top inside a little to make the seal. I’m not sure if this seal is the way to go since I always seem to have a bit of a leak. On the third dive I switched to my 7mm hood which fits tighter around my neck, this seemed to stop the leak for the most part. Unfortunately the zipper on the hood broke on day two and the leak came back. Karen went back to dive with her buddy on the second dive. Mike and Marie were nice enough to invite me to tag along with them. I accepted their offer for the next few dives before returning to my usual solo diving habit.

Dive #2: Tylor Bight
Depth = 61fsw     Time = 47 min.     Vis = 20 ft.     Temp = 54º

This dive was basically a small wall dive. We dropped down the anchor line and swam up the wall on the bottom and back at the top of the wall. The highlight of this dive was the Wolf Eel Mike found. What a surprise, I didn’t even know these guys lived in California waters. We also saw more of those colorful Starfish and a few Nudis.

        Food is always a concern of mine of these trips but the Vision met my demand for food every few hours very well. The meals were all great and the snacks were well prepared and varied. I was a very happy and well fed shrew.

Dive #3: Wilson Rock
Depth = 77fsw     Time = 34 min.     Vis = 30 ft.     Temp = 56º

The dive from HELL!!!! Marie bailed out on this one, she suffers from TMJ and like she said “I want to eat later”, so Mike and I were buddies. We were told there was a lot of surge and current and we would make our entry from the bow so we could descend on the anchor. Surge was an understatement!! Trying to pull myself down the anchor chain was a major task. Having the camera certainly didn’t help since that required me to do this one handed. The current was so strong it unzipped the gators on my suit! Plus the surge was bouncing us on a 10 foot yo-yo ride while spinning us around the chain. In my 12 years of diving this was the wildest descent and assent I have ever done. But once down the dive was a series of pinnacles that allowed us protection from the surge and current. We saw some huge Sheephead, a monster Poriopsilla Nudi, three Harbor Seals and a very cool Swell Shark. The assent was every bit as rough as the descent. After being spun around the chain for about a minute Mike looked at me asking if I wanted to just bail on the safety stop. YEAH, I really didn’t think being bounced around like that was doing us any good anyway. Once on the surface drifting back to the dive platform was rather easy. But this dive totally wore me out.

Dive #4: Prince Island
Depth = 65fsw     Time = 42 min.     Vis = 15 ft.     Temp = 58º

I recovered, somewhat, from the Dive from HELL and decided to do the late afternoon dive and skip the night dive. I think the combination of cold water and that last dive had taken its toll on my energy level. This dive was Rockfish central. It seems like Rockfish is the bail out species in California. If you don’t know what else to call it, it’s a Rockfish. We saw Copper Rockfish, Vermillion Rockfish, Black & Yellow Rockfish and Kelp Rockfish. This was a nice dive even though the vis was not the best.

        To be sure I didn’t do something stupid and attempt the night dive which I knew I was too tired to do I had a Dos Equis with dinner, and another with desert. Well that pretty much finished me off for the evening and I retired early. Only a few braved the night dive and didn’t report seeing anything awesome so I felt better about missing the dive. It was a little cooler in my bed this evening but I slept like a baby. I awoke just after 7:00 AM just in time for an awesome breakfast of custom made omelets. Over night the boat had been moved a bit further South to Quake Rock. The sun was out, the seas were calm, it looked like a perfect day for diving.

Dive #5: Quail Rock
Depth = 56fsw     Time = 60 min.     Vis = 40 ft.     Temp = 61º

That surge was fortunately gone as was the current, thank God! The vis was up as was the water temperature. There was more kelp here too which I thought was beautiful. As Mike, Marie and I hit the bottom Marie spotted several Sea Hares. I had never seen these before and could see why they are called Hares. They looked like they had huge ears and were very fat looking. After enjoying the Hare we moved on though the kelp. Suddenly I spotted something that didn’t look right. “Wait a minute, that’s a tail…and some fins….hey that’s a Shark, an Angel Shark!!! I screamed at Mike and Marie but with those thick hoods on nobody can hear anything down there Keeping a line of sight on the Shark I caught Mike and gave him the international Shark sign. We checked this guy out for a while but eventually the Shark had enough and swam off, what a cool critter. As was started back to the boat a couple of Harbor Seal were spotted hunting in the kelp. Harbor Seals are Great White food….right? I read somewhere GWs won’t come into the kelp, I was counting on that!

Dive #6: Cuevas Rock
Depth = 49fsw     Time = 70 min.     Vis = 40 ft.     Temp = 64º

The water was getting warmer and the vis was good. There was some surge on this dive but it was manageable. There were the usual critters here, Starfish, Rockfish and inside the Kelp I was surprised by a Harbor Seal coming around a rock to meet me face to face. To tell you the truth I think he was a little surprised too. But the highlight for me was a Spanish Shawl Nudi putting on an awesome show.

Dive #7: Cuevas Rock
Depth = 49fsw     Time = 48 min.     Vis = 25 ft.     Temp = 63º

I ran across the Harbor Seal again, what a cool creature. He looked as though he was hunting, standing on his head biting at something on the bottom. When he spotted me he disappeared with one flip of those fins. As I was swimming though the kelp I saw a shadowy sight in the distance. It turned out to be two large Sheep Crabs. Now I don't have arachnophobia, not too much, but these guys looked like giant spiders when I first saw them. Including its legs the big one was about 2 feet wide and about a foot tall!!!! Plus they were wrapped up in kelp, what's up with that? Best I could figure they were doing the nasty, although the smaller one didn't move at all until it finally fell off. I tried removing the kelp to help them out but the big one attacked my camera, grabbing both handles with its claws. I was lucky to escape with my hands in tact, LOL. All in all it was a very weird encounter. I did have a little dry suit issue on this dive. The surge was pretty strong inside the kelp bed. Suddenly I could not stay down. I was hanging on to a rock in the surge trying like hell to get air out of the suit and get neutral (only time I had issues with buoyancy other than the chain ride) when I looked up and there was Sea Hare taking a wild ride on a kelp leaf, pretty cool. Later as I started back to the boat and began my ascent a Bat Ray swam right under me. This was a very good dive.

Dive #8: Pelican Bay
Depth = 49fsw     Time = 48 min.     Vis = 25 ft.     Temp = 63º

Pelican Bay is correctly named. There were Pelican all over the rocky shore. Vis suffered here as did sea critters. There was a lot of small stuff including a very cooperative Decorated War Bonnet but for this vision impaired diver there wasn’t much to see. Because of this I decided to skip the night dive here too.

        Dinner was eaten and a few beers were consumed before I retired to what turned out to be a 57 degree bunk! I have no clue what they had the air conditioners set for but I eventually got up to retrieve my dry suit woolies from the dryer so I wouldn’t freeze to death. I slept in the woolies, my PolarTec socks with my head covered by the blanket. Not a restful night’s sleep at all.

Dive #9: Landing Cove, Anacapa Island
Depth = 58fsw     Time = 62 min.     Vis = 50 ft.     Temp = 63º

There was a bit of a surprise on this dive. We were all told to meet at the arch for a group picture. But the real reason was Seahawk was going to propose to Janie underwater. A very cool moment, she was totally surprised. This dive site was a huge thick kelp forest running from the boat to the wall. Swimming through the arch will bring you out to a sand flat. Following the edge of the kelp will bring you back to the anchor chain. In the kelp, which by the way “attacked” me on several occasions, we saw Lobsters, Garibaldi and Sheepheads. In the sand there were lots of Starfish and Rockfish. This was the first time I really had any problems with the kelp. Twice I had to reach back to untangle myself. Having fin straps taped or wearing spring straps here would be a good idea.

Dive #10: Landing Cove, Anacapa Island
Depth = xxfsw     Time = xx min.     Vis = xx ft.     Temp = xxº

I went back into the kelp thinking I would do better about getting tangled…..WRONG. I swear this stuff sees you coming and attacks!! But it is beautiful in there and easy to get out of even though it got frustrating after a while, not to mention I didn’t like having to tear this stuff up to get free. After I located the anchor chain I decided I still had plenty of time and air and swam on down the sand flat. As I rounded a corner I spotted a large lump in the sand, I soon realized it was a Bat Ray. As I started my “be the fish” approach a large school of Rockfish also approached the Ray. I guess he didn’t like all that attention and took off like a jet. Just as I turned to find the chain I was bussed by a couple Harbor Seals.

        I guess I didn’t pay attention to the briefing about our time schedule. As I exited the water I noticed almost everyone was eating lunch and we only had a dive window of 30 more minutes to get back in the water. I barely got lunch eaten when I had to get the suit back on for the last dive of the trip. Let me say here that this was not a fault of the boat at all. The first sight we tried that morning wasn’t fit to dive, that cost us some time. Extending my second dive to 63 minutes was my choice. We had a long crossing and needed to be back at the dock around 5:00 PM so we needed a time schedule.

Dive #11: Rookery Anacapa Island
Depth = 63fsw     Time = 37 min.     Vis = 30 ft.     Temp = 60º

The reason for diving the Rookery is Seal Loins. This site is the best chance to interface with these guys. We were told there was some current and to be careful to return to the boat so we wouldn’t be scattered all over the place at the end of the dive. They didn’t lie, there was current. I was late getting in and rather than go down the anchor chain I took a heading on the island and did a simple out and back swim. The first thing I noticed upon reaching the bottom was it was covered, and I mean covered, with Brittle Stars. As far as you could see the bottom was thick with these thing, must have been billions of them. I have never seen anything like that, very creepy. I swam for a long time without seeing any Sea Lions, figuring I chose a bad direction. I returned to the boat and was thinking I might as well just surface when I heard the barking. Barking? I spun around to see two Sea Lions playing in the sand right behind me. But they weren’t interested in me. I swam to the bow trying to find the chain since the current was too strong for an open water assent. I finally found it and started up. Just three then more Sea Loins buzzed us on our safety stop. At least I did see some, but learned later many of the group had ten to twelve Sea Lions play with them. It was still a pretty cool way to end the dive trip.

        With our diving over all that was left was to clean and pack our gear and make the 2 hour crossing back to Santa Barbara. The homemade chocolate chip cookies as a final treat made that crossing a little easier. It did get rather “bumpy” a few times and I wasn’t the only one thinking the anti-sea sick medicine and patches weren’t working all that well. But nobody succumbed to the symptoms and we arrived at the marina no worse for ware just past 5:00 PM. It took quite a while to unload the boat, say our good-byes and get underway. Laurie agreed to drop Judy and I off at the Super 8 in Long Beach which as it turned out was only 5 minutes from her house.

        There was some question about what time Judy and I were to be at the Sundiver boat in the morning so we decided to call. Judy called only to be informed by Ray that our trip had been canceled!!!! No excuse or apology was offered just that they were not going out. I found out later that a local group had canceled at the last second and that left only Judy and me as divers. I called Ray when I got back to Atlanta to find out what exactly happened. After getting past his very defensive attitude he confirmed what I had heard. I asked him about the fact he told me if I didn’t show up I would still have to pay and asked if he had the same policy for the local group. He said no, how strange. I certainly will not use his operation when I come back to California. This cost Judy a chunk of money to exchange airline tickets and me an extra night in the hotel since I couldn’t get out until Sunday’s red-eye. By the way if you’re traveling on Delta don’t even think about contacting them on their 800 number. After spending 2 ½ hours on hold I accomplished nothing. I went to the airport with Judy and was able to exchange my ticket at no cost in about 5 minutes. Of course it cost me $30 and 2 hours for the airport shuttle.

        All in all this was a great trip. There are always a few surprises in store for you an vacation, that’s what makes it so exciting. I could have done without the Sundiver incident but the people I met were fun, the diving was more than I expected and I expected a lot. The Vision is probably the best “creature comfort” live aboard I have been on. The appointments on the boat are great. I saw things I wanted to see and even a few that were surprises. Swimming in the kelp was an experience I certainly want to do again. The only thing I would change is having your tank stored in a spot other than the floor so you wouldn’t have to lift it to put it on. My gear rigged with a SS back plate, steel 95 tank, pony bottle, 4 pound battery and 10 pounds of weight is just about the limit for this skinny old shrew.

        I would like to thank everyone for an awesome trip. The crew of the Vision couldn’t have been more helpful. My thanks to Judy for offering to extend our trip in the southern Channel islands, too bad that didn’t happen. I can’t thank Laurie enough for picking us up at the airport and shuttling us all over. It was really nice meeting her after all this time on the board. Thanks to Ken for the use of the steel 95 tank and to Todd for the weights after the dive shop didn’t tell me I was supposed to pick them up myself. And most of all, thanks to Todd and Lori for putting on a very successful trip and allowing me to tag along.

        I’m not sure if I am a cold water convert, but I know I’ll be back for more. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared, but then again the water wasn’t really that cold either. It is a lot more work than warm water diving but to see the things we saw it was worth the effort.