Once again I made it down to dive with the Sea Divers.
It was a great trip! Anytime I can get out of town and get down to visit with people is a great time.

I got in 8 dives total.
I Met Shel, one of the legends in bug diving. One of these days I'd like to just follow him around on one of his bug hunts, not get in the way, but just follow and remain invisible and see what he does. I'll bet I could learn a lot.
I totally sucked at bug diving this trip. It seems I went the wrong way every time. Most dives I didn't even see any and the ones I did see were way back in their holes out of reach.
I did have a few oportunities to make a few grabs but blew it.
Ab diving might involve freediving and occational rough conditions but at least abs don't run.

The one dive I probably could have gotten a few bugs was the twilight dive (4th of the day) which I missed due to some leg cramping on the the third dive. I didn't feel comfortable doing that dive in case a current came up. We just happened to be in a current prone area and I would've been screwed. I needed to build up some electrolites for the night dive.
For the night dive I switched to my 1/2 " suit and It's like diving in a hot tub. We went to the exact same spot as the twilight dive after dinner and I figured in was a shoe in and finally some bugs, wrong, all shorts, didn't find one keeper.

Next day, woke up late. I'm smelling food cooking and figure it's probably time to get up. My watch was up in my gear bag so I was lost on time frame. I get up to the deck and everybody is gearing up for the first dive. Holy Sh_t! I better get with it!
I stuff a bagel and get dressed.

The following 4 dives of the day were wonderful. I semi gave up on bugs because the diving was so beautiful. I got bombed by 50-60 playful juvinile sea lions,I saw awesome terrain, and got a limit of really big scallops, thanks to Brian for loaning me his scallop iron. Oh yeah, I lost my knife the previous day going balistic over a bug that was holed up. I wasn't trying to stab it or anything, I was trying to get some urchins out of the way so I could grab and kill it!

A few things I learned:

Wear my 1/2" suit for both days so I don't miss any dives even though it's overkill and I get too hot in 53 degree water, but I'd rather be to hot than marginal.

Get all the stuff off my wrists so I have both hands available to kill things.
I may need to put a console together for these bug trips (gasp!)

Start backpack diving.

Go the opposite way from what everybody tells you.

I can't wait for the next trip.

• Re: Rosa and Cruz with the Sea Divers - Personal report halibug 13:38:38 12/07/07 (0)
• One thing I forgot Eric S 19:50:02 12/06/07 (0)