1/28/2006 - Did You See That Octopus?

Hilary mentioned that she had only seen one octopus before this trip to California. After today, she can say she's seen so many that she quit counting. She didn't even point out a few she saw because we were already up to about a dozen. We dived Marineland again with my friend Jeff Shaw, aka Evil Jeff. We found another large octopus, but the best thing was seeing a couple out in the open. We harrassed it a little, then moved onto the next one.

We found another couple of Hopkin's Rose nudis, but my pictures were not quite up to par...they sucked. We tried to coax a lobster out of its hiding place, but he would have none of it. The rest of the dive was spent leisurely looking at the myriad of fish, nudis, cup coral and Gorgonian sea fans. After a little over an hour, Hilary gave the all-important Gotta Pee sign, so we made a bee-line for the cove. Once again, we played slip 'n slide with the boulders that have been swept into the surf zone by the recent storms. I recovered Hilary's fin before it could float to Catalina while Jeff helped Hilary up. I tried for another attempted exit, but my left knee met a rock. The rock won. After washing gear and chatting about the dive we headed for the nearest pizza parlor where we were entertained by Jeff and his "warped" anecdotes.  

It was another great day of diving. Next weekend I am going to give Hilary a lesson in lobster hunting at Catalina. That should be interesting.