Posted by Chris on February 05, 2001 at 08:45:31:
Yesterday I went to Santa Barbara Island with the Sea Divers (http://SeaDivers.org/) on the Great Escape (http://DiveBoat.com/).
There was a mild Santa Ana blowing that made the Sea Surface look like glass. The night was incredibly beautiful, you could see the lights from Ventura, the San Gabriel mountains, San Nic, Malibu, and Santa Monica. The stars were extraordinary.
Our first dive site at SBI was a new site, a wall that drops from a 70 foot plateau down to 120 feet. The top of the wall looked like fiords on a map, with many valleys that intrude into the plateau. At the base of the wall were many small caves filled with purple coral. I did not find any bugs in the wall, but other divers did. I did find a legal bug in the rock piles on top of the plateau. The visibility was about 40 feet.
From there we went to hidden reef, where there were many nice bugs. . Here the visibility was about 60-80 feet.
Then around to the other side of the island where I sat out the third dive, because I had pushed it a bit on the first two.
Finally, we went to the East End reef, which was also thick with bugs, from 40 feet down to 80 feet.
I limited on bugs for the first time since October. It was a great trip, and good bug hunting. The best dive trip I've had so far in 2001.
... Chris
There are pictures from the trip at http://CaliforniaDiveBoats.com/GreatEscape/2001.02.04/