Posted by seahunt on May 07, 2002 at 21:56:16:
In Reply to: OK.... Enough about PADI vs watever.... LET'S TALK DIVING!!! posted by ed on May 07, 2002 at 11:33:23:
Wow. I'm really glad you like them.
I've really wanted to write more stories, but have been just too busy.
I've had fun at Leo Carillo, but I think the conditions were usually a lot better when I was there than for your trip.
One memorable trip was when I went on Thanksgiving Day. It was cold, rainy and overcast, but you've gotta dive. I went out with Baby John, which is always going to be a strange dive. We had a lot of problems, including what we were using for surface floats. It meant that we were in the water a long time.
We were going along the outer reef and was it very pretty, when we came to a big halibut. John is someone who talks about hunting more than he did it and even though he had a paralyzer on a poll, he would not shoot it. I decided to try to stab it with my abalone iron. Realize, I was about 18 at the time and basically nuts. It was probably lucky for me that the fish took off before I got to it.
Overall, it was a fun dive looking for lobsters and swimming through the gorgonian sea fans along the finger reefs.
Did I mention it was a long cold dive? When I was coming back to shore, I was pretty chill. I was paddling in on the surfboard that we had been using as a surface float, when a very large sea lion popped up right in front of me. He was incredibly graceful and basically did not disturb the water any as he came through the surface. He looked at me and then dropped straight back down again. I was cold enough that it could all have been an illusion. I looked though and there was a ring of foam where he had been.
It was time to go home, warm up and have some turkey.
Enjoy the diving, seahunt