Gary and I had two incredible days with the best underwater viz we have ever seen in the bay. We both estimated it at 30-35 feet horizontal. The surface was visible at all times, even outside the pier in deeper water, and you could see across the full width of the pier arm, four rows of piles. It was actually very pretty under the pier, the colors on the piles are striking and the fields of small white metridiums on the bottom were spectacular and not normally seen. UW highlights were an excellent variety of nudibranchs, a large octopus who stayed with me out in the open for about five minutes, and the mother of all hermit crabs. It was an extremely high tide, the water was over the top of the exit pile when we arrived.

On Monday afternoon we drove south to the butterfly grove in Pismo, there were clusters on just one tree branch but nowhere else in the grove. It was cold and I think we were early in the season. Then we headed north to the elephant seal beaches and had some magnificent landscape photo opportunities with a fantastic sky and flat, golden light from the setting sun.

I went back to my favorite SB-105 strobes using the single socket dual synch chord attached to the left port (facing front) and a plug in the right port. Everything worked fine and I will keep using this setup with which I have never had any problems.

Gary and I did two outstanding dives in perfect topside and underwater conditions. Topside weather was clear and balmy with temps in the low 70s. Water viz was excellent, maybe 15 feet horizontal. High tides were at about 1:30pm and 2:30pm on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, but the difference between low and high tides was only about 1 foot so there was very little current between slack tides. All that meant that we could go in pretty much anytime we wanted, thus the 11am and 10:30am entries.

Nudibranchs were plentiful, I think I saw about 10 species on each dive, including the newly discovered Onchidoris bilamellata (Image #1) which were everywhere on the bottom just outside the pier. My left arm got very wet on both dives, I found a small split in my left wrist seal after I suited up on Thursday. I probably should have changed seals because I got really cold with the wet arm. After the Thursday dive I poured out about a gallon of water from my left arm through the wrist seal. I changed the seal when I got home so should be good to go now when we dive in December.

On Wednesday afternoon we drove up to San Simeon and played with the elephant seals, actually seemed like there were less on the beaches than last month but still enough to make it interesting. On Thursday morning we spent some time with the birds at Windy Cove. Two great days!

For the first time in many years, we dived the South T-Pier. We got the approval of Jim Leage, owner of Great American Fish Company, earlier in the week, and as he assured us, the gate leading to the entry dock in front of the restaurant was open. It was a SPECTACULAR dive, best I've had in a long time. Highlight was a profusion of the beautiful Janolus barbarensis nudibranch. They were everywhere, I think I photographed 6-8 individuals. Exit was fairly easy, up the rocky slope leading to the gate at the west end of the restaurant, although Gary, who exited first, had to get a passerby to open the gate for him. It can't be opened from the inside. We need to remember this next time we do the South T-Pier.

After cleaning up at the BW we headed north to San Simeon and played with the elephant seals. There were many on the beaches, not as many as at the peak, but enough to make it interesting. Most of the individuals were young females, although there were a few young males sparring in the surf. On the way back we saw, for the first time in a long time, the Hearst zebra herd. Glad that the lunatic rancher who shot three of them recently didn't get them all.

Thursday morning we spent a little time at Windy Cove in beautiful flat morning light. Then we dived the North T-Pier and once again had a great dive with excellent visibility and another amazing explosion of Janolus barbarensis. It was a wonderful two days on the Central Coast.

We had a very nice dive on Thursday. When I got home after our last trip my Nikon SB105 strobes continued to misbehave (no ready light) but the Sea and Sea YS90DX's seemed to work fine, so I used them for this trip. They worked fine in the early part of the dive but started taking a VERY long time to recycle after about 40 minutes underwater. I think the problem was just old batteries. When I was testing the strobes at home I think I put in the used batteries from the SB105s and then forgot to exchange them for fresh ones. Anyway I wish my equipment bugs would finally get exterminated. I will continue to use the YS90DXs until they get crazy also. Nothing unusual spotted on my dive, just the usual suspects. Lots of dorids and one nice Acanthodoris lutea with a Hermissenda by his side.

Thursday morning we headed up to Windy Cove and got some nice bird images including the turkey vulture. Russell, the resident male sealion who hangs out at the base of the North T-Pier under the fish-processing plant, was very cooperative on Wednesday afternoon..

Despite two more nice dives, the equipment gremlins were back with me this trip. Before the dive I had broken off the little plastic knob that engages the on/off camera switch in the housing, couldn't get a replacement in time for the dive. No biggie, before the dives I just took the camera out of the housing, turned it on manually, and put it back in the housing. I noticed minor corrosion on the terminals of the housing connectors after using the Ikelite 50s on the last trip so I switched to the Nikon SB105s. They worked fine on the first dive but on the second day I got no ready light. The strobes fired in air so I made the dive. The strobes did fire but the camera didn't think there were any strobes attached so the shutter stayed open trying to make an ambient-lit exposure. At f38 that takes a long time!! So I got no images on the second dive. I did get a few showable images on the first day, highlight was the nice Aeolidia papillosa (Image #2) and the fringehead in the Heineken bottle with the little tiny Polycera atra on the rim of the bottle on the left side of the photo (Image #3). Good news was that Oceanic replaced my fried ProPlus 2 computer with a new one for only $160. I think that gage sells for about $1000 now. Gary and I checked out a nice flower field in Los Osos Valley and spent some time at Windy Cove.

Two nice dives, overcast in the morning but clearing in the afternoons. Gary brought me his prints for the Santa Barbara exhibit. Visibility was better than average. Janolus fuscus were gone, no sightings. I was happy to spot a young Triopha maculata on each dive (photo #2). On Thursday there were hundreds of egg-yolk jellyfish floating into the bay on the high tide. They were all sizes and very beautiful, but extremely difficult to photograph. Just couldn't autofocus on anything except the tentacles and the edges of the bodies. I did manage one decent edge detail shot (photo #1). I did a battery change on my Oceanic Pro-Plus computer/gage before the trip, and thought it was ok because it worked the whole first dive on Wednesday. But Thursday it was fried so I did the dive with no gage. No big deal but it is obviously wise to know tank pressure so I will probably go back to my old Suunto Eon for awhile. Don't think it makes sense to buy a new Oceanic although I really liked it. On Wednesday Gary and I dropped off some of our new MB books with Rouvaishyana at the Museum. He seemed very interested. Then on Wednesday afternoon we headed north and hiked the full length (and more) of the Harmony Headlands trail (1.5 miles each way). It was very beautiful (photo #5) but we both picked up a lot of ticks, especially me I ended up taking off about 15 of the nasty little buggers. We also infested our rooms at the BW which I am sure they appreciated.

Pam and Sarah drove up with me to meet Gary for a one-day, one-dive round trip. Gary had dived the day before. It was another fuscus day, I saw perhaps four individuals. One was on the bottom on nudibranch hill, the others on the piling. Visibility was limited (4-5 ft) but adequate, although I got very cold and my hands were really hurting during and after the dive. These fuscus are so interesting and beautiful I find I am not looking for any other species, although I did see several nice Polycera atra clusters. All in all a very nice dive and a nice day. Except for the dead battery in the Escalade, of course. AAA got us started and we made the drive home nonstop. A new battery has solved the problem. Oh, almost forgot one other problem, for the first time I can remember I left a piece of equipment up there, my favorite Cressi mask. Another one of those is also on the way.

Gary and I spent two spectacular days in MB on Tuesday and Wednesday. Topside weather was iffy, cool and overcast and very windy on Wednesday, but we had some great photo opps above and below water. On the first dive on Tuesday Gary hit the jackpot with a great find, an explosion of the beautiful Janolus fuscus on the piling, including one laying eggs (Photo #1). There were individuals on almost every piling. They seemed to be feeding on a gray bushy growth on the piles, but some were on the red bryozoan. It was a GREAT find, they are very beautiful and we had only seen them a few times in the past. Gary told me where they were and I found them on the second dive on Wednesday and had my way with them. If this wasn't my best MB dive ever, it was definitely a contender. In spite of the topside weather we also had some good topside opportunities. The bird nesting activity was good at Windy Cove, a whole new flock of cormorants were brooding in the trees along with many egrets and a few blue herons. I found one cooperative blue heron on the drive into town on the golf course side of Windy Cove, he was stalking and let me get very close (Photo #3). We also hiked up to the top of Black Hill in the State Park above the golf course and got some good HDR images of the Rock (Photo #2), the Back Bay, and US1 heading into SLO.

I made the dive on Wednesday 3/9 alone, Gary hurt his back and thought it best not to do any lifting. He arrived about noon after taking some magnificent pictures of the sandhill cranes at the Merced wildlife preserve. After lunch we did some photography at Windy Cove, then drove down to the butterfly grove at Pismo but they were mostly gone. Just a few individuals fluttering around but no big clusters. We proceeded a little farther south to Oceano Dunes and drove a few miles on the beach, then back to MB for some sunset photos from the North T-Pier.

My dive was good, lots of Triopha catalinae including a mating pair. Also saw a very nice Acanthadoris lutea.

I didn't want to do the dive on Thursday 3/10 without Gary, so we decided to drive up to San Simeon and check out the elephant seals. They were there but not nearly in the numbers in previous months. The adults were mostly gone, but there were still quite a few pups and yearlings on the beaches. We saw a young male with a horrific wound on his side (most likely a white shark bite). Two young guys reported him to the docents and one docent arrived just as we were leaving. He said they couldn't do much for him because they were prohibited from helping the animals unless the damage was "man-made". We also saw a starving pup trying to nurse from his dead mom. That was terribly sad and even days later I am having a hard time getting it out of my mind. Kinda wish we hadn't driven up there that day. The good news, of course, is that most of them do survive and seeing these animals living their lives on these beaches is one of the greatest sights you can see in nature.

I met Gary for just one dive on Thursday. He stayed over for another on Friday but I had to head for home because of the UCLA Old-Timers baseball game on Saturday. It was a nice dive, limited visibility but always good to get in the water. Highlights were a nice trilineata and a very unusual flatfish. I stopped on the way home for a few photos at a view spot north of Santa Barbara.

Two more nice dives with Gary, our first of 2011. Viz was very limited on Thursday 1/6 but improved dramatically on Friday. Nudibranchs continue to be abundant in number and variety particularly on the east-west berm (Nudibranch Hill). Five species shown at right, I think with several dorid species and ubiquitous hermissendas I probably saw a total of eight species on the two dives. We are seeing lots of salt & pepper (Aegires albopunctatus) nudibranchs now (top photo), several on every dive. That's very unusual, used to see them only about once a year.

After the dive on Thursday we headed up to San Simeon to play with the elephant seals. It's not quite the peak but there were lots of pups on the beach, and we saw some mating activity and some of the bulls were sparring. Action should be good through mid-February. Sky was beautiful and it turned into a magnificent sunset.

Two absolutely great dives with Gary. . We had a constant parade of nudibranchs, I think I saw eight species on each dive, including the elusive Polycera hedgpethi (image #4). There are so many nudibranchs of every species that I hardly even look for anything else any more. Water was clean, maybe 20' viz on Tuesday, a little less on Wednesday as the surf was up outside. The berm area is really producing for us. We are seeing LOTS of Janolus barbarensis now which is fabulous, they are incredibly beautiful. Also the Triopha maculata are making a comeback, seeing several on every dive recently.

On Tuesday afternoon 12/7 we hung our prints at the Museum for our third exhibit. Rouvaishyana said it would be on display for about two months

Best dive in a long time, and there have been some good ones recently! A one-day round trip for me, the second day of a two-day trip for Gary. Viz was not particularly good (maybe 8 feet) and a little green but the critters were abundant. I spent the last 25 minutes of a 61 minute dive in exactly the same place, at 19 fsw on the berm near the Cal Poly float. In an area no more than about 16 inches square, without moving, I photographed Janolus barbarensis (2 individuals), Polycera atra, Triopha maculata (first of the year), Triopha catalinae, and MATING Flabellina trilineatas. Where in the world can you photograph five relatively unusual nudibranch species without moving?? Saw lots of fringeheads in new and old bottles but the nudibranch show was so spectacular I didn't even bother with the fish. Also saw three other nudibranch species on the dive (Hermissenda crassicornis (of course), Archidoris montereyensis, and Aegires albopunctatus) bringing the total to eight species seen on the same dive. In the last photo on the right I photographed three species in the same frame, maculata, janolus, and trilineata, that's a first for me.

I did a one-day round trip dive on Thursday with Gary, who stayed and did a second dive on Friday. It was a good one for me, although Gary had camera battery problems (he made up for that with a great dive on the next day). Highlight for me was a beautifully positioned little octopus (Image #1). There were an extraordinary number of Triopha catalinae scattered around, I think I saw 10 individuals (Image #2). I also photographed a very nice cluster of healthy pink corynactis anemones (Image #3) and a nice cabezon (Image #4).

We were met and interviewed/photographed by a reporter and photographer from the SLO Tribune who are going to do a feature story on us. Who woulda thunk??!!.

Two of the best days Gary and I have had in a LONG time. Everything was great, clean water (viz about 15ft) and beautiful sunny topside weather in the mid to high 60s, and lots of critters out and about. Highlight of the dives (there were so many) was a spectacular Janolus barbarensis posing for me on a clump of red bryozoan (photo #1). I had some nice fringehead encounters including a male sarcastic (#2) and a one-spot completely exposed (#3). Also had a catalinae and a hermissenda side by side on a clam siphon (#4). It was with some trepidation that I used, for the first time in many dives, individual cords on the two SB-105 strobes (instead of the dual cord plugged into one port). I had tested them at home in air and in the pool. Glad to report they worked!! Don't know how they healed themselves but they did.

After the dive on Monday 9/20 we photographed the flower fields along Los Osos Valley Road (still spectacularly in bloom) and a squadron of beautiful white pelicans in Windy Cove. We stopped by the Harbor Festival office, met Hunter, and saw where our booth is going to be located (South T-Pier). Our pictures look nice hanging in the Best Western San Marcos.

I came up (with Pam) for the second day of Gary's two-day trip. Had a nice dive with fair visibility. Usual critters, nothing unusual. Highlight was the mating Polycera atras.

I did a one-day, one-dive round trip today. Neither Gary nor Coleen could make it today and I couldn't resist getting wet. Water was cleaner than it has been in a long time, probably associated with a very high tide (5.5 ft). Estimated viz was 10-15ft. I could see adjacent sets of piles in both directions most of the time, that's about 15ft of horizontal visibility. I saw four nudibranch species, lots of Polycera atras (including a triple in the same frame), Triopha catalinae, Salt & Pepper, and of course several thousand Hermissendas. All in all a wonderful 63-minute dive.

There were several beautiful fields of seed flowers in bloom along Los Osos Valley Road and I spent some time photographing them.

It was great to get back in the water after missing a month (last June). First time I missed a month in years. Two more excellent dives with Gary. Water dirty, very green, visibility maybe 4-5 ft and DARK. But the critters were there!! A big first for me, a new nudibranch species Trapania velox. Gary has seen it before (it's on the Nudibranch page) but this was the first time for me. It's an exquisitely pretty little thing (Photo #1). Also saw a great little fringehead in a bottle having an exceptionally bad hair day.

On Thursday after the dive we walked about four miles on the Point Buchon Trail in Montana de Oro. Spectacular coastal scenery!!!

Two more exceptionally nice dives with Gary. Visibility still limited, water "muddy" colored and unusually cold for this time of year (50F). I finally found one of the pipefish Gary has been regularly seeing along the west edge of the stem of the pier, and it let me do a nice face shot. Lots of the usual critters out and about.

We spent some time photographing the nesting cormorants, both from Windy Cove and from the back parking lot of the Inn at Morro Bay. Lots of great bird activity in the air.

Two wonderful dives with Gary. Limited visibility but enough to see some nice critters. Highlight was a very pretty Janolus (Image #1). There are still lots of nice wildflowers in and around Morro Bay, I photographed some at Windy Cove while looking at all the cormorants nest-building in the trees.

I participated in a Mind Walk at the Museum on Monday morning 3/29, and then drove to Carizzo Plain to meet Gary and photograph the spectacular wildflower display. What an awesome place Carizzo is - never knew it existed. Returning to MB we did a very nice dive on Tuesday morning. We are seeing fewer nudibranch species now, still lots of Hermissendas but almost no other species except trilineatas which have become abundant. Go figger. Before the dive we were visited by an otter mom and pup who were hanging in the current right off the east end of the pier chomping on clams. Nice touch.

Very nice dive, first one after our bad day at San Luis Bay. It was like getting back on the horse after you have been bucked off. Gary did a dive on the previous day 3/15, I could only make it on the 16th but it was worth the long roundtrip dive. Highlight was a very cooperative little snubnose sculpin who let me have my way with him. Also a few nice serpulid worms. It was really good to do a dive with no equipment loss, rescue, etc. Will do a Mind Walk at the Museum on 3/29 and then Gary and I will do another dive on the 30th.

All last year I have been threatening to do this dive on my 70th birthday, today it happened. High tide was at 7am so Gary and I suited up in the dark and hit the water at about 6:40am. Visibility was very limited (about 3 ft.) but it was still fun to do the dive (and now I can say I did it on my 70th!!). Nothing special was seen (by me); some Hermissendas and several fringeheads. Gary had a better dive with pipefish and trilineatas. The most interesting thing I saw was a pelican sitting on the pile we use for our equipment when we leave the water (see photo). He/she was drying wings and seemed annoyed that we needed the space - he/she finally hopped to another nearby location. Gary had to head home after the dive - but Pam, Karen and Andy (and the doggies Sarah and Kiya) spent the rest of the day playing with the elephant seals, wine-tasting in Harmony, lunching at Nucci's in SLO, napping, and more eating at Harbor Hut. Great day!!!

We planned dives on Monday and Tuesday, the first trip in 2010. Monday's dive was made in what was certainly the most bizarre topside weather we have ever seen here; a driving rainstorm when we entered, and strong winds with whitecaps in the bay when we exited. Nonetheless it was a pretty good dive for me. Viz was only about 3-4 ft. but I managed to find a new species (for me), the beautiful and strange Dendronotus frondosus (top two photos). Gary has seen and photographed this one before but this was my first time. I also found two pipefish together (one shown in photo #3) and a nice Flabellina trilineata (fourth photo). The weather improved, and we spent Monday afternoon on the San Simeon beaches playing with the elephant seals. There are thousands of pups on the beaches now and it was fun watching the interactions between the pups and their moms. Tuesday we were greeted with another driving rainstorm. We were prepared to handle the rain, but when we checked out the water at the pier it was bright green with a visibility measured in inches. Looked like the bay was picking up a lot of runoff. So we grudgingly decided to abort and head for home early.

We have been having excellent visibility on the last few dives, but things sure averaged out on this trip. The surf was really kicking up outside the bay (15-20' waves) and there were still dredging operations going on inside the bay. As a result, the water was a metallic greenish gray color. On Thursday, the first of our two days, I dropped down to about 15 ft. at our entry point, and couldn't see my strobes. I thought my mask was fogged, so I cleared it. Still couldn't see anything. I put my hand in front of my mask, and determined that the visibility was about 2-3 inches. I headed east towards the stem of the pier, and couldn't see a thing. Recognizing that it was hopeless, I aborted the dive after about 10 minutes. When I surfaced near our normal exit point, Gary was there and had already come to the same conclusion. We regrouped, cleaned up, jumped in the car, and drove north to San Simeon where we had a wonderful time playing with the elephant seals. The big males were just arriving and we had some great photo op's with them up close down on the beach.

Friday the water cleaned up a little bit. The viz was about 3 feet which was enough to make a dive out of it. Gary went outside, but I stayed under the pier for most of the dive. I didn't see anything unusual but did manage a few images of Hermissendas and the beautiful little tube anemones which are everywhere near our exit point at the base of the pier.

I stopped at the Monarch Butterfly grove in Pismo Beach on the way home and spent some time there photographing that amazing winter event.

We took a ride up to the elephant seal beaches in San Simeon on Thursday afternoon after the dive. There are still lots of mature females on the beaches but the big males are starting to arrive and arrange their harems.

I continue to use the dual synch cord attached to the left housing connector, mainly because it continues to work. I will probably keep using that setup indefinitely now.

Gary and I met for a one-dive, round-trip day. Extremely high tide (about 5.5 ft.) and CLEAN water, maybe the best visibility we have ever seen. Surface was constantly visible, even at 29 fsw, and it is always great to look up and see several rows of piling. It was a FABULOUS dive, the best in a long time. Only thing that would have made it better would have been some sunshine, but you can't have everything. Water has mysteriously warmed up from 45 six days ago to 54 today.

Lots of critters out and about, and easy to see with the good viz. 4-5 species of nudibranchs with the highlight being several Polycera atra individuals all anxious to do stretching, cantilever poses. Also saw a nice Janolus/Hermissenda relationship. Saw lots of pretty little sculpins, they are very beautifully marked with interesting, colorful patterns. You just have to notice them, they are not shy and will hang around for several frames. I used my double synch cord setup again with the housing connector on the left side looking forward. Everything worked so I am going to keep using this for awhile. Eventually I will experiment to try to get back to two single cords but since the dives have been so good and the equipment is working I don't want to risk a change. All in all a great dive, best in a long time.

Thursday 10/29 was takedown day for our photo exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. Gary was still busy with harvest, so I came up alone on Wednesday morning. I stopped for pizza at Nucci's and met Maryanne (Chuck Adams' sister) for the first time. Checked into the BW San Marcos, and sampled the jacuzzi and then on to Harbor Hut for cioppino. Enjoyed everything but it wasn't the same without Gary. Did a nice early morning dive on Thursday, cleaned up and then headed out to the Museum where Rouvaishyana and his great docent crew helped me take down the photos and load them all in the car. We got a lot of nice comments on the photo exhibit, it was fun.

For awhile the dive was kinda average, water was VERY cold (45F, I think the coldest I have ever measured in MB), viz not very good with lots of small particulate material in the water column, and nothing too exciting in the way of critters. Then it happened. I spotted a small octopus peeking out at me from a large broken horseneck clam shell (photo #1). After a few frames it eased out into the open and jetted a few feet away where it let me get a few full-body shots while it changed colors and shapes to confuse me (photo #2). I was not confused, so it jetted away again, just a few feet, but this time it landed right in front of a large one-spot fringehead blenny (photo #3). The blenny looked confused, coming WAY out of its lair and seeming to check out the octopus. The octopus hung around long enough to let me get several shots, left profile, full frontal (photo #4), and right profile (photo #5), until it tired of all this and jetted away into the gloom for good this time. All this was witnessed by a smiling crab with a moustache and a mohawk (photo #6). It was a GREAT encounter, I've never seen anything quite like it. That made it an excellent dive. BTW camera and strobes worked fine, I used the double cord connector again. I will stick to that setup for awhile as long as it keeps working. Gonna do another one-day trip with Gary tomorrow 11/4 Wednesday.

Things finally came together today. Weather was beautiful, my strobes worked, and I exited the water with all the same equipment I entered with, all of it attached to me in pretty much the original position. I tried a dual Nikon synch cord plugged into the left bulkhead connector with a plug in the right bulkhead connector. It worked fine, but I would sure like to find out why the individual cord setup didn't work. It might be a cord; it might be something in the right bulkhead connector. Anyway even though it was a little awkward keeping the cords off of the front of the port, it sure beat the hell out of the strobes not working at all!! :) The dive was LONG, an hour and eight minutes. Visibility was excellent again, maybe 12-15 ft, one of those days when you could see several rows of piles at the same time. Once I got out to the south (outside) edge of the pier I turned left (east towards Los Osos), pushed along gently by the slowing incoming tide, and eventually got to the east end of the pier before I turned around and let the now outgoing tide take me back. I constantly heard boat engines directly above me, which was a little unnerving. Lots of critters, several species of nudibranchs (Hermissenda (of course), Aeolidia papillosa, Acanthadoris lutae, sandiegensis, but sadly I didn't see Triopha maculata on this trip), but the highlight was several different sculpin, including a gorgeous little gold one that I need to indentify. I was so happy with the sculpins that I already put 4 of them in the Fish Gallery. I was prepared to stay another day to further investigate the problem I've been having, but everything went so well today that I decided to head for home. Plus it's just not the same without Gary, who will be busy with harvest through October.

:(

So Sad!!!

7 hours of driving, 48 minutes underwater, no pictures.

When I got home I tested the strobes in air and they did not work. I put on the YS-90DX strobes (with their own cords) and they did work. I then put on a dual Nikon synch cord in one of the housing bulkhead connectors, attached it to both SB-105 strobes, and lo and behold, they worked fine on every setting, including TTL. So the problem is NOT the strobes. It could be a cord, or it could be a connection in the housing. I will put a plug in the other bulkhead connector and try the dual-cord setup in the pool with the SB-105s, then maybe go back to MB next Monday (12:45 pm high tide). I desperately need to do one dive where everything works.

Gary and I did a single dive today. We got in early, about two hours before the slack high tide, and the current was ripping pretty good. The dive started fine and as I was under the pier, making my way south towards the outside edge of the pier, I noticed that I had lost one fin. I backtracked, hoping that it had gotten stuck on something, but that was not to be. I couldn't find it anywhere. Deciding, with that current, that my fin was probably in Los Osos by now, and realizing that it was really difficult to move without literally pulling myself along using something solid on the bottom (kicking with one fin was pretty useless), I decided to just stay put and see what I could see close to shore. I actually had a pretty nice dive under the pier close to the exit point, fired off 40 frames, and finally called it quits after about 40 minutes. But, with benefit of two fins, Gary emerged about 25 minutes later reporting a magnificent dive outside, finding a fabulous fat Janolus barberensis and lots of shrimp including a new one.

Stopped by the museum and showed Coleen and Sean our underwater photo exhibit. The exhibit looked great and it was fun to see and hear a few families pass by and "oooh and aaaah" over the prints.

Gary and I hung our photos for our new exhibit at the museum. They will be on display for several months.

UPDATE: When I got home I cleaned everything up and examined all the connections, inside the housing, the strobes, cords, etc. Everything worked in air, every combination of strobe and setting. So I put on the SB-105s and went into the pool where I shot 46 frames of my test fish (see image to the right) with all kinds of settings. Everything worked fine. So I will keep my fingers crossed. Next week Gary and I will do two dives in MB and then I head off for my sand tiger shark dive in North Carolina.