Esperanza again, and again...

Visibility: great today, like 60 feet or more...
Water temperature: A wonderful 74º, almost summer...
Current: ripping, super fast in mid-water, but nice on the bottom...
Surface conditions: no wind, no waves, no clouds...

Only three days ago, a ripping current in low vis, pulled us away from the reef and made it impossible to get back to it...


Today we had still a lot of current, but with great visibility, we knew where to go... A great dive in La Esperanza with a great show. The dog snapper hunting, speeding down in between the rocks in their chase. 'Fountains' of the smaller damselfish escaping from their jaws on the other side of the rock...
The Cabrilla in mid-water watching it all happen and jalously taking part in it. A sea lion swimming bye was more interested in playing than in hunting.
Esperanza really can make your day, especially when a shark shows up in the safetystop.
Again, a totally complete, beautiful and excieting dive. What a change three days can make!

An AOWD course...

Visibility: a very nice 50 feet
Water temperature: a comfortable 68º ?!?
Surface conditions: some wind and some waves...
Current: nice and gentle...


Chris has been diving several days with us, when he decided to do an advanced course.
Here you see him while doing his exercises on 100 feet, the deep dive. Here it was 'cold', a 68º cold, because for normally it is like 65º, real cold, on the bottom.

While Chris was buzy, the rest of us was having a good time. We don't dive the deep or 100 pies that much, 'cause normally in winter it's dark and cold. Now the conditions were great and gave a spectacular view on a group of anberjacks, chasing each other, circeling us... Big schools of snapper, big dog snappers, grunts all over the place and a lot of nudibranches... Strange I never see these little animals, is it because I'm color blind or just because I'm destracted with all that's happening all around me. If the deep is going to be like this, we defenitely are going to go here more often. I'll keep my eyes on the rocks and take some photos of nudribranches... if somebody can point them out to me. A guide in need of a guide...
Hey Cris, glad you can join us again, sorry you missed all this fun, but now you're an Advanced Open Water Diver, and a good one... Congratulations. 

Winter's gone already ???

visibility: over 50 feet, like in summer,
water temperature: over 74º, almost like summer,
currents: a severe push; 'armchair-diving',
surface conditions: hardly any wind or wave.

It is almost impossible, but it seems that winter is already over. The visibility is already some weeks great, over 40 feet, some days even reaching the 60's!

The reefs are full of life, the usual suspects; grouper, wrasse, snapper, big-eyed jacks, porkfish, goatfish and all in big schools. Sharks lunching under the jacks (and I didn't take the camara, grumpppffff) joined by some sea lions. Loads, but loads, like hundreds of dog snapper in mid water, above the thousants of yellow tail snapper. Several moray eels swimming freely between the grouper, gathering in the cracks to hide a bit from the current. And one lonely sting ray, laying in the sand, sharing the bit of algae with a humongous trigger fish. Cup coral is showing its full bright yellow colors, searching the current for plancton.
A dive with all these usual suspects, the ones you always see, nothing special, nothing outragious, but oh, so beautiful in the clear and warm water.
Yep, it sure feels like summer, or let's say spring, very early spring. Spring takes here normally something like 2 to 4 weeks and then summer kicks in with its great visibility, high water temperatures and currents. But 'normally' that would be from July on, sometimes a bit later or a bit earlier, but in April? Seems too early for winter to go...