Captains Andy, Paul, Cindy, Dr John (The Nite Tripper)and I made a banzai run to Two Harbors on Saturday looking for warm, clear water. One out of two isn't bad...

After a smooth, glassy crossing with only a few scattered dolphin to enhance the trip, we made our first dive at Ship Rock. Surface temp was a very welcome 63 degrees, but that was very short lived as we found 49-50 degrees at the thermocline at 55-feet. Vis was a wonderful 35-40 feet - What a joy after the 0-5 foot vis I had during the Monterey Bay Sanctuary, NOAA survey I did last week!

There was some current but up against the face of the rock it was fine and after shooting inverts down 115 feet we slowly ascended and decoed in the warm, golden kelp at the 20 to 30 foot level. It was very cool since there were huge Mercury-like balls of Jack Mackerel pouring through the strands of kelp.

Second dive was at the west end of Bird rock. We enjoyed the walls and ravines, and again had the 30-40 foot vis and the huge schools of jack mackerel and Blacksmith. It was just a great, relaxing dive.

Dive three was again at Bird, this time at the NW corner were the bottom terrain is a bit flatter, but the kelp was just magnificent. Swimming between the stands of kelp really is very much like hiking through a dim grove of redwoods ashore. On our ascent we again had our cohorts the jack mackerel, but Cindy spotted a school of some other locals - barracuda - who were cruising the perimeter of the kelp bed, no doubt looking for a nice jack mackerel to invite to dinner...

A very nice relaxing day of easy diving.

I love So Cal diving!