My two daughters from a far-away, land-locked state spent some time in Southern California earlier this month, and this time we decided to go with a marine theme. They’re both water lovers – they swim competitively, and love to go boogie boarding. So we did lots of boogie boarding, visited Sea World in San Diego, and even did a pool-based scuba intro. The highlight of their visit was spending a couple of days in Avalon on Catalina Island. We snorkeled at Lovers Cove and the Avalon Dive park, and of course explored all the fun shops. They were presented with the option of doing an intro scuba dive in the Dive Park also, but weren’t entirely comfortable with the idea this time: the ocean seemed awfully deep and cold, and there was lots of ‘icky seaweed’ down there. Not to worry – this isn’t something that should be pushed, lest they have a negative experience and not want to try diving again. Here are a few photos of my little mermaids, as well as some shots I took around the dive park (I did put on a tank to take the Dive Park photos – I’m not THAT great of a freediver)

Getting some final instructions on the surface.

Ready to enter the underwater world.

Learning the basics.

Look at me! I’m a fish!

Yikes! Is that what I think it is?

With the dolphins at Sea World.

Fish-eye view of snorkelers.

She couldn’t resist speed-snorkeling.

Cruising over the kelp forest.

A relaxed snorkeler.

Kelp bass through the forest.

Giant kelpfish.

Our favorite little orange fish.

Soft coral.

• Camera question? FARMHAND 08:39:36 08/22/05 (1)
  • Re: Camera question? Dick J 11:23:50 08/22/05 (0)
• Cute critters those mermaids. ;-) (nt) jlyle 06:06:21 08/22/05 (0)
• Nice Trip/Dive Report Mojostone 22:36:58 08/21/05 (3)
  • Camera; carnivorous wrasses Dick J 08:03:25 08/22/05 (2)
    • Re: Camera; carnivorous wrasses Elaine 23:57:42 08/22/05 (0)
    • Elaine's Army Patrick 13:39:48 08/22/05 (0)
• Great report... Jeff Shaw 17:36:33 08/21/05 (0)