Brief Trip Report: Southern Channel Islands- Memorial Weekend

[Trailboss123]

I had the opportunity to head out for a last minute 3 day Southern Channel Islands dive trip and jumped on it. I am local and dive pretty much once a month or every other weekend up north at Anacapa or Santa Cruz Islands. I don't get the opportunity to dive Catalina or San Clemente islands as often. My friends at Finstad's Worldwide Diving Worldwide Diving Adventures had chartered the dive weekend on the Vision dive boat with Truth Aquatics |

I have been on many trips with Truth Aquatics and on the Vision, so I knew what I was getting into. I won't go into detail about the boat and all of the other intricacies. If you have interest and are new to So Cal Channel Islands diving, you can read all about that here in @drrich2 excellent trip report: Truth Aquatics Aug. 2016 Trip Report - California

As for this weekend, we had really nice weather (sunny and 70's) and a pretty full boat. Food was awesome, and the company was excellent, as usual. Boat was mostly full of Bay Area divers, but we had a smattering of out of state divers also. Water temps were a balmy 62-63 degrees down south. Visibility was average to above average for this time of year. Always a crap shoot.

I didn't focus much on photography or video this trip, but did manage to catch enough fotos to put together a little 4 minute You Tube clip. What you won't see in the video clip, but was the highlight for me this weekend was an encounter with a 6 foot female Soupfin Shark while diving along the wall at 60 feet at the Fish Hook dive site on San Clemente Island. I was not camera ready and she startled me.

 

[drrich2]

Sounds like a fine trip! Would like to hit that area again someday; we're blessed with so many options, I can't dive all the places I want to go. Did you guys go with a full boat? My trip was a 'limited load' trip, and a group that'd booked didn't show, so we had plenty of space.

Richard.

 

[Trailboss123]

Sounds like a fine trip! Would like to hit that area again someday; we're blessed with so many options, I can't dive all the places I want to go. Did you guys go with a full boat? My trip was a 'limited load' trip, and a group that'd booked didn't show, so we had plenty of space.

Richard.

This was the first time that I didn't do a limited load trip. It was last minute and I got offered a sweet deal. I definitely felt the difference. I am very happy to pay the little extra $ to do a limited load. Having fewer people makes accommodations and diving all that much better. Fortunately, we had a very good group of repeat patrons who were very conscious of personal space and accommodating one another.

 

[Ready4Launch]

I had the opportunity to head out for a last minute 3 day Southern Channel Islands dive trip and jumped on it. I am local and dive pretty much once a month or every other weekend up north at Anacapa or Santa Cruz Islands. I don't get the opportunity to dive Catalina or San Clemente islands as often. My friends at Finstad's Worldwide Diving Worldwide Diving Adventures had chartered the dive weekend on the Vision dive boat with Truth Aquatics |

I have been on many trips with Truth Aquatics and on the Vision, so I knew what I was getting into. I won't go into detail about the boat and all of the other intricacies. If you have interest and are new to So Cal Channel Islands diving, you can read all about that here in @drrich2 excellent trip report: Truth Aquatics Aug. 2016 Trip Report - California

As for this weekend, we had really nice weather (sunny and 70's) and a pretty full boat. Food was awesome, and the company was excellent, as usual. Boat was mostly full of Bay Area divers, but we had a smattering of out of state divers also. Water temps were a balmy 62-63 degrees down south. Visibility was average to above average for this time of year. Always a crap shoot.

I didn't focus much on photography or video this trip, but did manage to catch enough fotos to put together a little 4 minute You Tube clip. What you won't see in the video clip, but was the highlight for me this weekend was an encounter with a 6 foot female Soupfin Shark while diving along the wall at 60 feet at the Fish Hook dive site on San Clemente Island. I was not camera ready and she startled me.

Nice Felimare californiensis. Craig Hoover - local marine biologist - gave a really interesting presentation on the species at the last Channel Islands Divers Club meeting.