WOWWWW!!!!!! what an amazing dive in Palos Verdes. First, on the way to the dive, I hit every green light (there’s about 234510 of them on Hawthorne blvd). It’s not a big deal – it’s a friggen miracle. Then, I didn’t slip, fall, and eat shit on the way down the steep, slippery, sandy trail riddled with broken glass. There was no swell – so I walked in the water, relaxed, said a prayer, counted the stars, and wished that at least one of the 2 Chic Fil-A’s opened on Sunday g’damnit! I put my mask on and wondered if someone switched my mask with one of those HD glasses as seen on TV. The ocean greeted me with Crystal clear water – there was no swell, no wind, hardly a ripple. It was like diving in a lake without the moss! And without the ugly ass catfish, and mosquitoes. So it wasn’t like diving in a lake at all. And, outside of the 20 hoopnets within a few hundred yards on the outside edge of the kelp as I worked the inside, it was serene. They were way out there, in BFN, probably drinking beers and Irish boat bombs.
The beginning of the dive was powerful. I was able to sneak into areas that are usually so turbid that you’d smash your nose, eyes, and teeth trying to get into close enough proximity to see anything. But really I didn’t wanna smash my teeth cause I needs my teef! You know, everything was ho-hum, easy peasy, I caught two lobsters in five minutes, , NBD. The first one, I caught glimpse of the antennas protruding from a hole and jammed in there, and pinned the other to a rock in the open. There were fish left and right, lobsters crawling, pretty action packed. Pretty awesome.
And then, the ocean went fucking pianissiSSimo. Nothing seen. I checked shallow and natha in España Español. And then deeper in the thick kelp tangle. And all I could think of was the wild boar bacon, the red onions, the san marzano tomatoes, and the lobster with some bucatini. an amatriciana sauce with lobster stock+lobster. dove siete aragosta??? Where da f are you. I checked far from my entrance and swam around the ocean. Looked under crevices and ledges and wished I had 8 eyes like a spider, and as the time went on and the underwater flashlight got dimmer, my breath shorter, my legs tireDurrr. I wondered, did all the lobsters go to suicide in the hoopnets? Are they fools to eat frozen fish and nasty squid? Even my golden retriever won’t eat that :). The lake conditions were Bamazzing, which is Amazing^2 x 5. Completely silent.
AND THEN! There was that exclamation, that factorial, that awesome sight that is hard to explain and hard to compare to anything, and just trojan horsed me I was left just staring. It was a simple bat ray that glided by me in slow motion. It was a baby. But it was so comfortable with itself, it had such confidence. It was so serene, so unabashed, so real and so unaffected, that when I followed it, I wondered if it had a few St. Patty’s day drinks. I never seen a bat ray not flap its wings for a full 3 minutes. How did it swim? I don’t know, It was supermanbatray. A few seconds later, a shark swam my direction and hit me in my mask. wtf bro I’d tailgate you and honk you until you got home if you did that in real life. (joking, don’t spray paint my red truck). I know mammals and marsupials are loving to their young (and most humans)… but I saw a MOMMACRAB grabbing its baby crab by the claw and running away with it when I shined a flashlight on them. It was so endearing I almost cried in my mask. I looked under a boulder ledge and saw Eels and crabs and lobsters and fish all huddled in the same cave for body warmth or something. Guess spring coming late this year. 3 hours freediving in the water I got home and my body was starving for nutrients. exhausted and thirsty, I gave it Naked Juice and Bordeaux. Mouton. Not bad – Just one of dem days 🙂
