Old dives

John pulls a Biff
or
Man bites shark

On July 7-9, 12 Alacosta divers stayed aboard the Vision and traveled around the Channel Islands. We traveled to first to San Miguel Island. On the first dive, the current was strong and the divers had to slowly make their way down the anchor line. In the excitement, John Beland forgot to press the button on his DataMax Sport dive computer. John was forced to use the old-fashioned Navy dive tables. Elsa Bailey dove in her new wetsuit. It did not have any holes. We stayed at San Miguel for the day and saw a variety of sea cucumbers, Aplysia, and nudibranchs.

The Blurb used its new Nikonos, purchased from Tom Casey, with some trepidation. Amazingly, the camera did not flood during the entire trip, even though it was taken on many dives. Only once did the Blurb open the camera before the film was rewound. Linda Yee occasionally served as a model for the Blurb, with mixed results. Perhaps underwater photography is not as dangerous as it seems.

The Vision later traveled to Santa Rosa Island, where the water began to get warmer. The number of miniature orange sea cucumbers increased. A few of the dive sites had gordonians.

Rob Vermeulen was seen in the company of a young blow shark one night with his mouth wrapped around its body. Ginger Hovell did not join Rob on the Vision this year. The Blurb was unable to determine whether the shark returned Rob's affection.

During the final day, the Vision traveled to Santa Cruz Island, where the divers were unfortunate to see one or two garibaldi.

Bernie Cappelli tried out his new wetsuit, which started out the trip as a drysuit. The suit made the conversion easily and without further problems.

Tom Southworth made a last-minute cancelation, so the Vision was forced to make the trip without him.