.....Maybe not.

What I mean is that I have hundreds of unsorted and/or edited photos graphs
of various locals. I should be at home telling the stories of the south
Pacific and the like. What did I do???

I went diving in Monterey instead of doing my "chores."

Good for me.

Although the diving wasn't the best I've seen lately, it was nice to get
back into the water.

At first we motored down near Carmel.
Upon entering, and after a few moments of extracurricular breathing, I was
able to slow my hyper-ventilation which seemed to be caused by the 52F/11.1C
degree water. With a wonderful vis of at least a meter on the surface, we
descended in hopes of finding the better vis down below. As foolish as this
sounds, there really was better vis at 90 feet. It was even up to 5 meters
at times. In the kelp with low light, you'd think we were sunk, but no, it
was OK.

My buddy and I did get a bit blown by the current, so we had a bit of a
"kelp-crawl" to get back to the boat after the dive. The good news is that
swimming will warm you up a tad.

The photo I like from this dive is a yellow nudibranch. Nice clear, bright
and slow. Good stuff for photos. There were some big Jellies there too, but
they were so big that the distance required to fit them into the frame
caused too much muck to get in the photos.

The next dive things got better. The temp raised to 53/11.6 degrees. This
may seem small now, but in the water I used that as a rallying point to keep
me going. The sun came out of the fog and the vis increased to about 10 foot
practical and 20 foot reported vis. (I think there is often a difference
between the "practical vis", and the "reported vis.") This dive allowed us
to enjoy a pinnacle right of the Monterey/Pacific Grove shore -- near the
Aquarium, sort of.
I'm going to have to check up on the crabs that were the best subjects on
this dive.

When back on the boat, and after may of the stories had been told. Steve
Catron - list member and Aus traveler - realized that we were on the same
list and knew some of the same people. Funny that two scuba-se's can
accidently find themselves on the same boat.
Anyone else?

Though we didn't have much time together (hopefully,Steve, next time there
will be more), the best part was talking to someone who could "talk-story" a
bit about the Sydney NED's. Ha! we had to laugh anew.

Well, it's still summer here, and the sunny day that followed helped me
forget the cold of the morning. As the hippies now say, "It's all good."

John