YAY! The soupfin finally showed up for me! Of course I did not get a shot. But he was there. I swear. 

Anyhow. I was supposed to go hiking today but my wife decided I slept too late and went without me. So I drove  down to the beach to Crescent Bay instead to check out the awesome conditions that everyone had been raving about over the last couple of days. I got there around 9am and the first batch of early divers were already leaving so I got an awesome parking spot! Again! I felt like a million bucks! 9am was high tide and a brief survey of the beach, or what was left of it really, showed that that King Tide thing is no bullshit. There was almost no sand left! But surf was close to non existent with a few "rogue" 2-footers here and there. 

I got back to my car and was surprised to meet with two of the old crew from back in the days with the Laguna Sea Dwellers. I decided to tag along, maybe this time I wouldn't suddenly decide to go the opposite direction of the reef after dropping off, which for some reason is exactly what I did at Shaw's Cove of all dive sites, a few weeks ago. Go figure. Anyway, navigation was never my forte, so following divers who actually know where the heck they're going might be nice for a change. Also, maybe 3 pairs of eyes might spot the elusive soupfin this time. Who knows? 

They did. All three pairs saw the majestic animal cruising around in the kelp bed like it was his 'hood and we had nothing to do there. FINALLY. After 20 years diving these waters, it was the first time I actually saw one of these. Awesome. Of course I had been shooting sunbursts at 1/800s, so by the time I finally set my camera back to 1/125s, he was long gone. He came back a bit, but not at an angle that would have worked anyway. One of my buddies thought he got a good shot. We'll see the posts on social media, I'm sure. 

The rest of the dive was pretty cool with two additional sharks, horn shark was their brand. They're small and cute but not as exciting and scary-Hollywood-type-looking than their cousin the soupfin. Still a great find! Lots of bugs, including grand-father size ones, a couple of kelp fish, tons of Garibaldis biting at each other, curious sheepheads and a shy octopus. 

I was warm and toasty in my wetsuit. On top of the full body 7mm, I added a 5mm vest which I had cut most of the sleeves. That jacket is pretty cool with a dragon design on it but of course no one can see it once I put my BC on. Oh well. The important thing is that it kept me warm for almost the whole duration of that 75 minute dive... I started getting cold only at around the hour marker. I surfaced with about 10 bars (145PSI) of air and got another one of these damn cramps in the leg as I was nearing the shore. I had to stop maybe 20 feet from dryland for a bit as it was quite painful. I even screamed a couple of times but that did not seem to bother the 3 big guys that were like 50ft from me playing in the waves in their swimsuit. With water at about 60F (15°C), they must have been from the East Coast. Or Alaska. Anyway, they did not respond to my screams of agony, so I had to make it back to the beach by myself which is good because I did save face in the process... My two buddies surfaced a few minutes after me and we all decided that it was a freaking awesome dive.