Being the first buddy pair in the water and out, my buddy and I were first in line for lunch, the spread was so much better than it was yesterday so we ate our fill, later we remarked to the rest of our group that today’s lunch was so much better than yesterdays. They replied that it was exactly the same but they just ate it all when we were diving and it serves us right for doing such long dives. Also over lunch we discovered another very big difference between UK and US divers, decompression. About half of our group had a few minutes of decompression obligation on the pinnacle dive and did the stops with not even a second thought. This was mentioned in passing and some experienced US divers were very worried that we had done some deco as in they had done about five hundred dives and only on one had accidentally gone into deco by two minutes and that was a very scary dive. They could not believe we were so causally talking about deco as they expected only technical divers did deco and most of them died doing it. Having realised that there was a large difference in approaches they asked us what the longest deco any of us had ever done, the answer of one hour forty minutes left them speechless, luckily I had the dive still in memory on my dive computer to prove it. 49 meters max depth, dive time 123 minutes, after seeing this I think they decided that we Brits were nuts.
The skipper had arranged that our final dive in the Channel islands would be a special one indeed, we were diving on a section of reef known to contain Giant Sea Bass, these giants of the Bass world can grow to over seven feet. My buddy and I were very impressed with the skippers local knowledge as we could see the giant fish below us the second we stepped off the boat. As we descended to the sea bed we could see the fish circling below us, almost waiting for us, at this moment my spool attached to my harness decided to come adrift and floated off by itself. As the fish seemed to be hanging around I decided to sort the mess of line out before turning on the camera. As I knelt on the seabed sorting out the mess the Giant Sea Bass decided to come for a closer look, I remember looking up and seeing three huge fish heading right for me about two foot off the deck, I had to duck as they went over me. Having sorted out the spool I turned on the camera and looked around for the huge fish, however they proved very camera shy; sadly, they never came anywhere close for the rest of the dive. Still at least being the first in the water we got to see them, not everybody on the boat was that lucky.
Later on that dive we saw a large shoal of Sharpnose Surfperch that seemed to be migrating. For about ten minutes a blanket of fish surrounded us, each swimming in the same direction. There seemed to be thousands in this shoal, we never got to see the end as our computers were about to slip into deco so we headed up the slope to a shallower depth to finish the dive. Back on the boat we were treated to a display of acrobatics by a Californian Sea Lion who was leaping out of the water when fishing, she was using the boat as cover zooming under the bow to leap on the surprised fish.
Having seen lots of lobsters during two days diving, most of our party decided on the final night to try the local speciality of surf and turf, a big steak and half a lobster, which was tasty, followed by a night at the Blue Marlin, a local nightclub.
The next morning with a few sore heads we sadly had to head back to Los Angeles. We all enjoyed the diving we did, and the crew of the King Neptune were suburb, they did everything they could to make our diving as easy as possible and we would not hesitate to use them again.
Our flight down to La Paz Mexico was not until the next afternoon so the plan was to check into a hotel in Long Beach and meet up with the other five members of our party who were flying out just for the Mexico leg. Having met up as a large group we then set out in smaller groups to see the sights, some headed to Venice beach (one member of that group could not work out why his wife was so keen to see muscle beach, what could be so exciting about a beach covered in bi-valves?), others headed off the sea world, others to the visit the Queen Mary and most adventurous two of our party hired Harleys for the day. Some of us also found time to go to see a collage football match, which was an experience for us all, mostly for Simon who used to play American football, so had to put up with the rest of us asking questions every minute or so. We then all met up in the evening and set out on foot to find a restaurant to eat in, the least said about that the better, after an hour of walking some of us ended up at the McDonald’s next door to the Hotel.
The next day allowed us some more sightseeing, including a visit to a shooting range, before heading off to the airport to fly to Mexico. On arriving at La Paz there was some confusion with taxis, but Clive the trip organiser, managed to resolve the situation and soon we were standing on the dockside looking at the Don Jose which was to be our home for the next week. The Don Jose was built as a whale watcher so at first glance is not an ideal dive boat with a very cramped dive deck, however due to the helpfulness of the crew this really was not a problem. We quickly threw our dry bags into our cabins and gathered on the sun deck for an introduction to the boat and crew, from Peter, our dive guide. He introduced us to the crew and the boat, showing us the important things like the Beer locker and O2 kit. Dinner was not included onboard that night so he suggested a couple of good places to eat locally, unable to make a group decision we split into two groups, one going to an up market Italian restaurant, the others going to a street side taco place. The taco place was the place the locals ate so we had fun ordering our food and beer in what Spanish we could remember from school, although Ian did not help by repeating “Boutros Boutros Gali” to the very confused waitress. However, lots of food and beer did turn up and all for the princely sum of five dollars, which was about the price of a beer in the Italian restaurant.
Early the next morning the engine started and the Don Jose slipped her moorings and headed out into the Sea of Cortez. Just after breakfast we arrived at the first dive site Los Islotes which is famous for its colony of Sea Lions, after an extensive dive briefing we kitted up and jumped in. After the cool waters off California it was nice to ditch the dry suit for a wet suit. The shores of the sea of Cortez are mostly rocky cliffs with little coral so the underwater landscape is a bit barren compared to the Red Sea but there is still plenty of fish life.
Very common is a type of puffer fish locally called a Balloon fish, it is common to see twenty or thirty in one dive, sometimes in large groups. Also very common are yellow tail surgeonfish and also various types of starfish carpet the rocks. However this dive sight is really about one creature and that is the Californian Sea Lion. We had arrived at just the right time, the pups were large enough to be very inquisitive and playful. They are shy to start with, but if you settle down in the right place they will buzz you, daring each other to get close to the strange bubbly creatures. In the shallows near the cliff there is a cave where the Sea Lions feel safe and are very playful there, coming very close and mouthing your hand or whatever shiny bit of kit caught their eyes. The pups are mostly very playful with a few smaller shy ones lurking on the limit of visibility, some of the younger females can be curious as well, however the few bull males that were still around were aggressive if they thought you had strayed to far into their patch.
On a later dive I had a very close encounter with an angry bull; I was diving with two other photographers and was just off to one side, shooting the Sea Lions from the cover of a rock against the sun. I kept an eye on my buddies to make sure we were all close together in case anything should happen, I turned around to shoot a few more frames and turned back to see no buddies, thinking they had swam inshore a bit to where the main pack of Sea Lions were, I stuck my head around the rock to see a very large bull about four meters away from me, mouth open, heading at full speed towards me! I ducked behind the rock as he passed inches above my head and turned around to see my buddies swimming into the distance having abandoned me to the large bull. Apparently he had been buzzing us all and they took the hint and swam away, but I did not even notice him! Nice to have buddies that swim away at the first sign of trouble! (Only kidding guys.)