Friday was Scuba Day for me. I’ve done all my diving up ’til now at Catalina, so I decided to try something new this time out. I drove up to Ventura and went to Anacapa Island on the Spectre dive boat. I liked the Spectre but I’m not sure about Anacapa.

Dive #1 was at a site called Underwater Island. It’s basically a reef that comes within 15′ of the surface and drops down 65′ to the ocean floor. It’s surrounded by sand (almost like an island, hence the name), so the reef itself is really all there is to see. You just swim around it … and around it … and around it. You’re basically just doing laps until you’re low on air, which is what my buddy and I did. I did manage to find a nice dive knife on the bottom — the exact knife I’ve been thinking of buying, in fact — but the girl from my boat who lost it reclaimed it before I was even out of the water.

Dive #2 was at a sea lion breeding area, so we got to dive with the seal lions, which was pretty cool. Visually, it was pretty boring — just sand and a small reef — but fortunately the sea lions were there to liven things up. They’re very playful and oh my god are they fast underwater. They’re like torpedos that turn on a dime, and that dime is often just two or three inches in front of your nose. They love to come streaking straight at you and veer off at the last possible second, or they sneak around behind you and dive-bomb you and swim loops around you. Really, really fun to have them do that. I kept having trouble moving during the dive; I’d be kicking to swim over and look at something and it kept feeling like my fin was hung up in some kep or something, but I was never entangled when I looked back. Some of the people on the boat told me later it was a juvenile sea lion playing with me — he kept sneaking up behind me and biting my fin as I was swimming, hitching a ride from me.

Dive #3 was in a protected area on the front side of the island, where hunting and fishing is prohibited. The reef was in much better shape here, with a lot more coral and wildlife in and around it. We saw a good-size bat ray and a big daddy lobster. There was a lot of coral and sea fans and it reminded me of the reefs I snorkeled in the Bahamas — except that those weren’t in 60 degree freezing cold water.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. I’m going to try another dive boat out of Ventura Harbor — probably the Peace, and I want to dive Anacapa again to see if I like any other dive sites there better. Right now, with my limited experience, the advantage goes to Catalina.