9/18/2009 - Marineland This Morning

I had the day off work and have been working on a video idea that requires some wide angle shots from Marineland. The sun was shining bright around the west side of Palos Verdes at 6:30, so I knew I would have plenty of ambient light, but as I neared Pt. Vicente a blanket of fog covered the area. Oh well, I'll shoot some close ups with the lights, I thought.
The surf was down to less than two feet, but the water was milky. One of the shots I need is in less than ten feet near the shore, so I changed plans and swam to the point instead. The surface was flat enough that it seemed to take only a few minutes to reach Ted's Pinnacle, so I decided to keep going around the point. I dropped near the deeper pinnacles with the nets on them. Some day I'll remove the nets, but for today I needed to find visibility.
I didn't find much. It was five to six feet at best beyond the point. I slowly made my way back to the cove where the visibility was about a foot or two. Merry and I will be making the Santa Monica Pier cleanup dive tomorrow with Patrick Smith. Hopefully the trash will look better than the milky water today.
I used 100watt video lights, so the conditions look better than it actually was.