Here are a collections of pictures taken over the past couple of weekends. I went diving with a co-worker on the 4th. On the 11th, Angel, Nicky, Terry, and I went to a Clippers’ game courtesy of a co-worker of Terry’s who had the tickets and wasn’t planning on using them. This past weekend, the east coast crew came out for a visit; they flew in Thursday night and flew out on Monday morning.
Some helpful information for scuba diving in southern California. This stuff is important for dive planning. To optimize the best times for diving, I visit various sites to calculate the best date and time to hit the water. The first place I visit is a local Laguna Beach dive shop’s website that sends a diver out to check conditions and then posts the daily conditions on their site: Laguna Sea Sports’ Dive Condition Page
It has been almost a full year since I last dived Laguna Beach, or off the coast of California for that matter. So on Saturday, I had my first dive of the year. It feels damn good to be back in the water. The conditions from earlier in the week were amazing. The water was as still as a lake, and the visibility was about 30-35 feet. I hoped the the conditions kept up for my dive on Saturday. The conditions were fairly good. Not the 30 feet that had been posted earlier the week. The surf was kicking up a bit, so it was a little surgy but not bad. Visibility was very nice. Temperature on the surface was about 85 or so degrees. Not too bad for the middle of January. Temperature at the 25 feet was 56. I had a hole in my glove so my left hand was a little cold. Enjoying my first day back to diving, I decided to go again today, Sunday. Below are pictures taken from the top and from the water.
Hooray, I got to go diving today. The ship got into port at about 7:30 am. I set the alarm to go off at 6 but just went back to sleep because I was f-ing tired from the idiotic running I did the day prior. I wake up around 7:45, put on my gear and high tailed it to the landing dock. After getting packed in a very small confined area on the ship, we are finally let off the damn thing and I head over to see about my “diving adventure” excursion. I get there and there is a divemaster there waiting for me. I am the only diver from my ship. Hmm, there goes the hopes to meet a cutie diver from the ship, or any other diver from the ship. There are two other cruise ships that made port this morning; Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) and a Holland America ship. I get to the dock to get onto the ship that will take me out to the dive spot. I meet Ted from Arizona who is the single diver from the NCL ship. He is an older ex-navy guy, and fairly friendly. We hang out while heading towards the dive spot, which is about an hour and a half boat trip from Puerta Vallarta. The view, the location, etc just reminded me of going to Catalina as the port looks like Long Beach and it takes over an hour to get to the dive spots.