Underwater adventures

First, an aside: Driving into the lab Sunday morning I saw a large bird flying. I thought it was a great blue heron, until I realized it was carrying something, and then I thought "that could be an osprey." Sure enough, the bird landed on top of a power pole. I ran up to get the small binoculars I have in my office and then climbed to the third floor to get a better look. It was an osprey with a big fish, and he warily started pecking away. Apparently the fish didn't like this, because its tail was flapping around. Ten minutes later, the fish's tail was still flapping around occasionally. Ugh. Some days it's better to be the osprey, huh? (But it's always better to be the birder.)

So I've been taking SCUBA lessons. This whole thing started in July and has now managed to stretch into September. I've done training dives both Saturday and Sunday for the last two weeks, and I've passed the swimming, diving and written tests, so I am now officially a novice diver. The training dives were quite fun, although on the first two I think I spent more time trying to figure out how to dive, rather than enjoying it. The first two dives were in Big Fisherman Cove, which is where WMSC is located. We dove 20-30ft down to sandy bottom and saw bat rays, skates, a sanddab (flatfish), sheepshead, kelp (calico) bass, and along the rocks near the pier, some garibaldi and spiny lobsters. This weekend we dove in kelp forest. Saturday was Chalk Cliff Cove. That day we saw some abalone, a horn shark and an octopus, along with much of the stuff we saw previously. Kelp forest was cool to dive in - like swimming through bushes. We also hit a thermocline. It was very interesting to see the visual distortion caused by the differing densities of water. Sunday we dove Pumpernickel Cove, which was also kelp forest. Here we saw some green abalone, bunches of snails and large sea urchins, garibaldi, lots of kelp bass, some really big sheepshead, lobsters, and a kelpfish. A fun couple of weekends, but exhausting. Diving is hard enough, but do it in cold water and you're pretty much done for the day.
The Dive Master at the lab (who taught the class) is very enthusiastic about having some more resident divers, so maybe Sweetie (after she re-certifies) and I can get some good diving in while we're here. There's certainly a lot to see down there.