So this weekend marks my return to the ocean. I have been an avid scuba diver for years, but for the last year life has made getting away for a weekend to dive impossible. Well in 4 weeks I am taking the boy to Mexico for a dive vacation and felt it was very necessary to get him back in the ocean for a practice dive before the trip.
Now I don't know if anybody reading this knows anything about diving in general, or California diving in particular. California is fairly technical diving, and much like tanking or healing (see the WoW refrence there hehe) very gear dependent. In California, you wear a 7mm wetsuit (almost 1/2 inch of neoprene) a ton of lead weight my fat butt in a drysuit carrys almost 50lbs of lead, plus the cylinder, when full weighs almost 40lbs. Then there is all the other odds and ends of the gear, fins, mask hood, gloves, boots, regulators, lights etc. etc.
All in all scuba, while amazing is a lot of work.
This weekend the boy and I went to Lovers Cove in Monterey California. In almost 10 years of diving Monterey I have never seen a day with better conditions. When we arrived at about 10:00 am, the fog was burning away, there was not a wave or swell to be seen in the ocean. When we geared up, and dropped in it was the single greatest dive I have ever had in California. With all the sun and warm weather the kelp beds have been growing like mad (almost 2 feet per day). The dive felt like flying through a forest. We only hit about 30 feet, but the sea grasses growing on the bottom, and kelp rising to the surface made for amazing views.
This is what California diving is all about.
p.s. I forgot my underwater camera at home, I could kick myself. This weekend was a photographers dream.
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