We planned to go back to Phil's Reef this morning to feed some squid to Pepé, or whomever was there. After looking at my previous poor quality photos and video of the wolf eel, we couldn't be sure if the one we saw yesterday was a different one. Scott and Margaret Webb snuck out early to try and scoop us, but didn't find Pepé. Margaret reported sixty feet visibility at the bottom. Note to self; buy Margaret a prescription mask for Christmas.

The surface water was even bluer than yesterday. I looked down our anchor rode and saw our depth markings seventy-five feet below.

At the bottom, however, we could only see a shadowy outline of the metridium block from the crab sculpture twenty feet away. Oh well, eighteen feet vis is better than some of our dives here.

We didn't find any wolf eels, so I took a few shots and then headed west in search of the barge. I swam for quite awhile before turning back. After what seemed like five minutes, I surfaced to take a bearing after missing Phil's Reef. I was a hundred yards northeast. After a rushed surface swim, I dropped back down to take a few shots of Merry in the blue water.

Metridium block, home of Pepé the wolf eel

Crab Sculpture

During our ascent, I saw Merry arching her back and looking upward. She's usually very good at remaining horizontal during a dive, so I looked up to see what she was looking at. From fifty feet, the surface looked as if we could almost touch it.

I told Merry when I first met her in 2006 that we would have better conditions in the Fall. For the next five years I had to eat those words, but Fall of 2012 is giving us bluer water that I have seen near shore in twenty years.

• Re: A Hard Day's Dive maggieD 18:07:38 10/21/12 (0)
• Dive Monsters.nt ~ej 15:46:33 10/21/12 (1)
  • Re: Dive Monsters.nt Max Bottomtime 15:55:46 10/21/12 (0)