Sharks and Merfolk

Swim when you can and as often as you can -- a wonderful idea!  Bill and I were lucky to make any swim at all today, since again, family plans have a way of occassionally infringing on swim time... Imagine that and I know you all can.  Despite all our hurrying around, we still managed to meet up with the mermaid sisters, Cami and Wendy (photographer of the day), and Lyndee. Looked like Laura and Claudia beat us out into the water before we could round up the stragglers...  we even ran into Mauricia (sp) and Kevin just going out while we were heading back to shore. Gorgeous day, despite the less-than-perfect viz and bit of algal bloom in the water.  Warm seas around 68 delighted us and we sailed on smooth rollers for a fun bump in our ride out in search of the soup fin...

Smile, then lets go find the sharks!

Bill found them too!  Happy days, as Wendy had her heart set on locating some... many fish and good times.  Here are some fun-tastic photos taken by Wendy.

A beautiful mermaid (guess who?) with the shark hunter in the shadows....

Why we are sooooo spoiled!  Great shot, Wendy.

Not great viz, but Wendy got some great shots.

Here they are! Bill pointed and we delighted in finding MANY sharks below.

So keep on swimming, team! Whenever you can and wherever you can find a beautiful blue sea like this.
~Cary

Shark City

Glorious water again today, Friday.  By my count, it's been 4 solid weeks of clear, flat water out there.  Truly unprecedented.  Do we deserve this?  YES!!
Cary, Cami, LFTC, Toni, Ken, Claudia and DianaDarling in our pod today.  And what a treat!  CoveBob alerted us of the abundance of sharks out today.  "Head to the green buoy, then straight to the Marine Room."  We must have passed them up on our way there.  Must have been looking, wide-eyed, at all there was to see--the visibility was endless.  We saw only one or two leopards on the way out.  But we returned in slightly deeper water, and BAM, we hit paydirt.  Mobs of leopards in 8 - 10 ft of water, gliding through the sea grass.  Blue-tiful sight!
Cami reported seeing a black sea bass and many Soupfins.  She took the rest of us back to where she'd seen the sharks (how did she find it again?!); and OMG, shark city!  Dozens of beautiful sharks swimming in harmony among the fish.  We hung out there (midway between the Q and the first pin buoy in a patch of kelp) for a long time.
More sightings on the way in--schools of brown fish, sargo and baracuda.  It was too much good fortune for one day--Cary's unofficial birthday swim.  Happy Birthday, Cary!

TRIGGERFISH! IM NOT KIDDING!

WE saw these today:  http://www.discoverlife.org/20/q?search=Balistes+polylepis&b=FB4276

triggerfish!  LFTC, Alexis, CFTC and Lyndee were a swimmin from the A to the .24, to the caves and back and on the way back I spotted that classic stride of the triggerfish... top dorsal and bottom fins move to propel the fish, and they do it alternately... dove down and saw  three of these guys!  Alexis got a close and silly encounter with a juvvy sea lion, looked for the classic olla which nobody believes ever really existed (I have pictures still in my underwater-undeveloped-disposable camera that is now MIA), Lyndee graced us with her mermaid like love of the water (and Im ever-grateful for her dad overseeing us and our safe swims out there), LFTC wanted to have a board meeting with all present "I could stay out here all day long!"

Gloriously clear to the bottom most of the way, lots of interesting fish, more kayakers than fish and a good lookin jr. lifeguard instructor that Alexis 'noticed'. 

Glory Days of SUMMER!!

Another wonderful weekend of swims!

Leonard was the leader for the Saturday swim!  He gathered us all together at 10:30 and we showed up in full force with our so many of our peeps on deck... LFTC, Diana, Ashley, Alexis, Leonard, Ralph, Lyndee and the MCs had a great swim to the Marine Room to look for whaterver we could find on a gray day... still it was fun -- Lyndee was smokin' fast on the return and Laura and Leonard were having some sort of race through the seas -- they were unstoppable. Some had to get back to the shore and others of us headed out to the 1/4, then the A and then finally, whew! in... we even did something we never do -- we all went out to a little Italian place had lunch together... after running into our Ethan who made his excuses for not making for the great 10:30 AM swim -- too early, I think he mumbled as he explained he swam all week.  One thing that made me laugh, Laura waited until (out of breath) we were huddled at the A buoy and she starts telling the great white stories... geez -- it was like telling ghost stories around the campfire to a bunch of little frightened kids! LOL... we were calm, cool and quickly swam into the cove after our campfire around the A stories...

See? It was warm and sunny (at least it was after the swim)!

Sunday the SUN came out -- we had 11 (nearly a 12-pack), but lost poor Kathy along the way. She didn't hear Bob say it was A, B, 1/4 and then cave day... she only heard, "1/4" (she swore that Bob whispered A and B) and off she headed. The rest of us were off to the A, B and beyond... Finally we discovered Kathy back at the cove, wondering how she could have lost 10 swimmers that day!  It was all good, a choppy, bumpy swim, with good viz and a fun trip through the cave with Carol and Bob... we did have an amazing group that showed up at noon -- ready to rock the seas!  We had Shayne, Bob, Carol, Phoenix, Leonard, Diana, Janie, Ralph, Kathy, and the MCs (I'm sure I forgot someone).  We missed all you that didn't come -- it was gorgeous after the swim, the sun came out and it was just like Cami always dreams --- perfect.

So let's not miss next weekend, eh?  Hope to see you for the July Birthday Pier swim at 9:00 AM and bring treats to share afterwards on the grass...

1/2 MC...
~cary