5/14/2008 - Conditions Improving, Despite Being On Vacation

It seems as if every time I take a week off work, the dive conditions turn horrible. The past two days were no exception. I stopped by Vet's only to see the waves were much higher than yesterday. I drove around to Marineland thinking it would be another dry vacation day. To my surprise, there were only a few small waves in the cove, and the dirty water was contained there. Not planning a Marineland dive, I left my shower and wagon home. It was a nice, very warm day for walking .6 miles in a drysuit with a 119 cu ft tank on my back. To make matters worse, I dropped a glove along the trail and didn't notice it was missing until I was halfway down the hill. I turned back and found it...near the top of the trail. By the time I got to the water I was already drenched. I put on my new dry gloves and crossed my fingers. For the first time they actually stayed connected to my drysuit after two wet dives.
I dropped in the area we've come to call Rainbow Nudi Bank. I immediately found several who seemed to be napping. The only movement I saw was out of the corner of my eye when one came by, swimming in mid water. I took one quick shot before he settled on the bottom.
I had at least twelve feet of visibility all the way back to the edge of the cove, where it went to less than a foot. I swam in to six feet, right in front of my exit point. I love familiar surroundings. The water temperature was colder than I've seen it in over a year at 47.8F, but with my gloves staying on I didn't notice.