Winter is still running pretty hard on us here in Southern California. 75F at the beach (24°C), 82F inland (28°C), high surf coming tonight only (it will ruin Sunday so I guess I'll have to find something else to do), it's perfect earthquake weather... So we went diving.

We had around 15 people today, showing up for the Saturday SOCDC club dive and we decided to visit the Cleo St barge. If you wonder what the hell this is, check out this previous post.

Parking was awful but we managed. Crossing Pacific Coast Highway in full gear is always a tourist attraction...

Conditions were spectacular again, with visibility in the 30ft range. More in the shallows, less at depth. We could see whole sections of the barge (or what's left of it).

I managed to loose the group a couple of times, always busy snapping a picture of the sunbursts in the kelp (Tv 1/500), a few lobsters triplets (Tv 1/80, macro, flash), giant octopus (giant for the area, not the monster from up North), bass, abalones feeding on fresh kelp, strawberry anemones, scorpion fish and other critters that were out today (probably enjoying the great conditions too).

On the way back, I ended up swimming with 3 or 4 small leopard sharks and enjoyed filming them for a little while until I ran low on air. I even ended up entangled in the kelp trying to follow them, gee they are fast. Contrary to their bigger cousins on Mountain St, these did not seem to care to much about me and did not take off as soon as I exhaled. Very cool.

You definitely should have been in the water today. Definitely.