On Saturday, I got up at the ungodly hour of 4-something-a.m. and made the pilgrimage up to Long Beach to catch a charter out to dive the UB-88 submarine wreck.
Sometimes, I think I’m doing “leisure” wrong.
We got to Long Beach and the freeway offramp had literally been ripped in half (due to construction) so we spent the next 40 minutes circumnavigating the streets of Long Beach through a bunch of harebrained detours. My navigation skills being what they are, it was very fortunate for all parties involved that I was not driving, because I would have just given up and cried myself to sleep on the side of the road or something.
Fortunately, it didn’t have to come to that, as Mat successfully steered us in the right direction(s) and we arrived in the nick of time (i.e., we were not the latest). Unfortunately, all that driving ate into (see what I did there?) what would have been our breakfast time, so we did without. No big deal.
I probably should have had a snack on the boat, though, because in retrospect, I was a total space cadet on the dive. A look back at my photos reveals my schizophrenic side: shots that are carbon copies of shots I took the last time I dove the sub, shots that could have been great, if only I’d paid more attention, and shots comprising what I’m going to call the No Wolf Eel Left Behind program.
There were approximately 239985192 wolf eels on the wreck, as there typically are, but this time, they spoke to me, apparently. I think I photographed all 239985192 of them. Mostly poorly. But it’s pretty comical to go back through and see all of them. I was on a mission.
A No Wolf Eel Left Behind mission.
(Settings: f/9 at 1/30 sec, ISO 250, with my trusty Tokina AF 10-17mm Fisheye Lens.)