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A Sojourn with the Shawls
So I was having some issues with my strobe connection, which made my lighting situation pretty much suck, especially when it was called upon to light anything farther than 0.000000001 cm away. Incidentally, there aren’t a whole hell of a lot of sea creatures who tolerate that kind of proximity to us noisy bubble-blowers. So…
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Tech Diving Catalina Island and the California Oil Rigs
Southern California Tech Diving with Ocean Research Group This past weekend, I attended my first Ocean Research Group technical dive trip on the Sand Dollar out to Catalina Island, California. As a fledgling SoCal tech diver, it was pretty cool to do some “big kid” deep dives under the guidance of experienced divers and instructors. I’m also…
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Baby Pandas are Adorable Fuzzy Lumps of Boring
Today was giant panda cub Xiao Liwu’s public debut at the San Diego Zoo. Xiao Liwu, whose name means “Little Gift,” was moved to his outdoor habitat yesterday, where he did all kinds of adorable baby animal stuff for the media. Now, I’m no expert, but my understanding of pandas is that they do three…
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Curaçao: Stunning Slugs, Snails, and Worms, or… the Pretty Yucky Stuff
Christmas Tree Worm Go anywhere stateside after Thanksgiving (hell, after Halloween), and Christmas stuff is everywhere. We arrived in Curaçao Thanksgiving Day, and I don’t recall seeing anything glaringly festive. That’s OK. The only Christmas tree I needed in the Caribbean was of the worm variety. Possibly the prettiest worm ever: the Christmas Tree Worm.…
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Curaçao: Claws, Jaws, and Cephalopods
Just some crustaceans, eels, and mollusks we encountered on our recent scuba diving trip to Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles: Banded coral shrimp… The batwing coral crab… The red reef hermit crab… The white speckled hermit crab… Banded clinging crabs… which I think are just ADORABLE… Spotted cleaner shrimp… The perennially-grumpy…
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Wreck Diving North Carolina’s Graveyard of the Atlantic
After our ill-fated attempt to dive the caves of north Florida, we needed a Plan B if we were to salvage our trip. Armed with cell phones and hope, the three of us piled into our go-kart of a rental car and started the nine-hour drive north, making calls to dive shops and charter boats…
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Why I Dive: Sea Lion Edition
People ask me all the time why I dive here in California. Maybe they’ve gone for a dive or a snorkel in Hawaii or the Caribbean, and they know the water here is so much colder and darker and less clear. I’ve lost count of how many times they’ve asked, incredulously, “Is there anything to…
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Let’s go cave diving! Actually, let’s not.
I’m still in a hurricane frame of mind from last week. Prior to Irene in August of 2011, I hadn’t really ever given hurricanes much thought. Those are east coast things that happen in east coast places, and being a primarily west coast kind of girl, they just didn’t factor much. Until Irene of course. And…
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I don’t always solo dive, but when I do, I’m liable to spend eight minutes at three feet with a kelp crab.
On Saturday I got out for a much-needed fun dive in the Point Loma kelp. It felt like I hadn’t been in the water in a while, and it showed in my more-moronic-than-usual navigational skills. Mat and Nick were doing training dives for their rEvo rebreather class, and my initial intention was to watch them…
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Point Loma Sailboat Wreck Debris Cleanup
Update 2/2014: Although swells have long since reduced the Chelsea Lee wreck to a debris field, the rocky reef structure at the wreck site remains a favorite destination for divers due to its dramatic wall topography and rich marine life. Cleanup of the Chelsea Lee Sailboat Wreck Yesterday, Marissa crew and friends went out to…