062824 Brain Reset Session

I went on a local dive trip last Friday to destress and thought I'd share the experience if y'all need something that's not sales-y or a "you're living your life wrong" or some of the other crap that's slowly infiltrating LinkedIn. There's nothing fancy here. I just thought this might give some a breath of fresh air from all the usual LinkedIn posts.

I booked a spontaneous dive trip aboard the Spectre dive boat out of Ventura, California. I got to the dock around 5:10 am and assembled my equipment. Space on dive boats is limited so I try to minimize my footprint by taking only what's needed and that normally means boarding with my gear assembled so I avoid boarding with all my different bags and cases.

The free-standing scuba tank is relatively new to me. It's a 5.7 L cylinder given to me by a friend. I'm trying to get used to diving with it since it is longer and floatier (I know...that was also weird to me as well) than the 4.3 L version that I have. The dive mask normally kills off peripheral vision so things like clipping equipment on and off are done by feel and muscle memory. It helps to re-train yourself when you change something in your setup so you're not fumbling around if things were to get dicey.

I checked in, got to my dive station, did the safety briefings, got some complimentary breakfast and we motored out to Anacapa Island about an hour and a half away.

Dive 1

The first site was called Underwater Island because it's simply a mount of rock sitting by itself on a bed of sand. Visibility was okay but not great - typical for early summer in Southern California. There are no complaints on my part especially since we've been plagued by a weirdly wet winter and spring (hashtag droughtover) which led to long periods of red tide because algae feed on the stormwater runoff and bloom like no other.

I found a dive light almost right away and it was fully functional! Jackpot! The ocean giveth and the ocean taketh away. This has to be karma repaying me for not "charging" my dive buddies when they accidentally lose the equipment I lend them.

Yes, it's a blurry pic - a reminder for me to check my settings. I was primarily interested in looking for nudibranchs to photograph although seeing a great white would be the best thing ever. The main thing of interest on this dive was some kind sea salp. I'm unsure if that's the correct term because salps are tubular, as far as I know, but this was sheet-like and rolled into itself.

I'm pretty sure it's not simply plastic since it has some kind of texture and it floats differently. I've seen plenty of ocean plastic and this does not look like one. Cameras on dives are cool because you can photograph stuff and learn more about them by asking people. I already asked both Google and chatGPT and neither had definitive answers. Anyway, I tried to take a nice photograph of it by having exposure settings darker than ambient light exposure and then somehow lighting it with the dive light I found. That's very challenging and I failed miserably:

The Olympus TG5 does not have a full manual mode. The semi-automatic modes will always try to have an "okay" exposure by self-adjusting one of the parameters. In this case, the camera chose a very slow shutter speed hence the motion blur in the image. The beam angle of the dive light was also not wide enough to illuminate the entire thing so maybe it's time to get a proper underwater setup.

Dive 2

The second dive site was called Channels because it's a bunch of rocks clustered together to form...well...channels underwater. I cruised around a bit then found a garibaldi chasing another fish. It's usually not a big deal because they're known to be territorial, but this one was particularly so.

It took me a while to realize that it was guarding something. See the yellow/brownish fibrous-looking thing behind it? I think those are either eggs or at least his nest! I wanted to get close and take some macro shots or even film the behavior, but I had my wide lens on. Doing so would mean getting very close and IMO it's just not nice to harass wildlife for the sake of a photo #respect. I took a handful of frames and left the little fella alone to tend to his eggs or nest.

I was about to surface when I found another goodie - a weight pouch with two 5-lb soft weights! I use scuba weights to do workouts, so this was another nice find because I can add more. The problem was that you're not supposed to carry anything "heavy" without using a lift bag - a balloon-like tool used for salvage/recovery operations. 10 lbs might not be much but it can throw you buoyancy and trim off if you're already properly configured. Taking on an additional 10 lbs would mean I'll need to add more air to my BCD (Buoyancy Compensator Device) to, in simple terms, not sink. There's a risk of dropping it since the weights are not attached to me. If that happens with the additional air in my BCD, I can shoot up to the surface like a Polaris missile and risk getting nitrogen bubbles in my muscles and bloodstream from the rapid decrease in pressure (similar to the fizzing in carbonated drinks). The weight pouches are filled with lead pellets so I didn't just want to leave them there. I clipped my camera to my harness, secured the weights in the weight pocket, held it tight, and prepared to ascend. I've done something this stupid before, so I'm better prepared for the task. The decompression stop was uneventful but not fun since the extra weight kept pulling one part of my body down. I got it out of the water and handed it to the divemaster only to find out that it belonged to one of the divers on board. He said thanks and shook my hand for retrieving them.

Dude, where's my recovery fee aka post-dive beer?

Dive 3

The crew served lunch after the second dive and everyone ate while we motored out to the last site. I had my usual veggie burger (Beyond Burger), but people can choose BBQ chicken or tri-tip steak instead. The Spectre is known to have very good food. One of my former assistants scuba dives sometimes and when I asked him if he's been on the Spectre, his response was, "Yes! They have amazing food!"

The third and final site is called Cat Rock. The water looked deceptively good because it was blue, but there was quite a lot of particulate once I got under. It was also very close to solar noon aka the time of day when the sun is almost straight above. That combined with all the particulate in the water made for a bright (relatively) but very flat and uninteresting light. The southern portion was okay but there were lots of purple urchins. Too many of one thing is not very good and this is no different because they eat the seaweed and make the area look barren.

The northern part was better, but a lot more murky since it's closer to shore. I did see a small Pacific Barracuda though:

Horrible shot. Not a fan of the kelp stalk crossing the fish, but I waited way too long trying to get closer. This is a common challenge photographing pelagic species with ultra-wide lenses. These things are built for speed so there's no winning in trying to catch it. They're not as gnarly as the more popular Giant Barracuda, but they're still a treat to see since they're not as common as your more basic species - garibaldi, blacksmith, calico bass, sargo, etc.

I tried to do some over-under or split shots at the end showing the boat on the surface and divers underwater. I literally just floated at the surface waiting for people to show up, but they kept popping up away from the boat. I had to make do with a piece of kelp leaf.

That's it, folks. There's nothing much to this post other than giving people a change in LinkedIn scenery. I didn't plan on writing this. I didn't even Photoshop these images yet. I simply wanted to take a break, get some dives in with the new equipment setup, and hopefully see some nudis (nudibranchs)...or a great white shark.

If you're considering trying scuba diving, do it. You don't need to buy the equipment since pretty much everything can be rented. The basic open water certification course has gone up in cost since I started, but what hasn't? Obviously, the prices vary per shop and region. It's about 2 weekends long but it's a ticket to a lifetime of opportunities to see things a lot of people do not see. Plus it's a great way to destress and do a brain reset because there's no internet underwater ;-)

Peace out!