After last week’s terrific vis on the Star of Scotland and the Santa Monica artificials, and with no harbor reports, we rolled the dice and took another run at Santa Monica Bay. Alas, you win some, and you lose some. Today we lost.

Surface conditions were fantastic – glassy flat with a fairly big but long duration swell. The bay was loaded with breakfast, make that bait, and huge numbers of dolphins, sea lions, pelicans, terns, grebes, sea gulls and just about every other denizen off the coast was chowing down on the on the fishy manna.

Surface looked good and vis was probably 20+-feet on the descent until about 30-feet when conditions began to deteriorate. On the bottom at 80-feet vis was a very milky, dark 6-8-feet. This was pretty much the case on all the artificials, the only redeeming factor being Capt Andy managed to get up close and personal with three BSB on two of his dives.

The final dive on the Star was the worst of the day; vis was a cold, dark, 3-4-feet with a very noticeable surge across the wreck. Despite the conditions on the bottom, it was a great day on and in the water, but tomorrow I’m going to the SCUBA Show.

Stay wet