We dove Ship Rock next, and what a sight that was! Drifting along in deep, bottomless water, the rock slowly materializes out of the gloom. Baitfish and blue perch swam out in bunches to greet me. I did two passes, each time reveling in the amazing terrain. I was slowly getting used to carrying so much lead and being squeezed into so much rubber. We stopped at Johnson's Reef next. Bill took the outside track, while I lurked in the inside of the kelp bed, trying to find a decent sized calico.
Our last stop of the day was, for me, the dive of the trip. We anchored inside Eagle Rock and dove the inside kelp bed. It was getting later, and the sun was low. I jumped into the deep blue water, with the bottom nowhere in sight. It's a sight that all bluewater hunters know, that brings joy to our hearts. As I swam through the purple-blue water, the wall appeared. It seemed to go off into eternity to both the left and right. The bottom was not visible. It was a straight wall of thick, dense kelp. With the sun behind it, it appeared dense and forbidding. I made my way into it and started crawling through the kelp. As it got later, the kelp rooms started showing more life: at first opal eyes, then small calicos, and finally , some larger calicos. I slowly pulled a kelp frond off of my mask and peeked into a room. A 7 pound calico eyed me warily, and try as I might, he eased off into the kelp before I could get into a position. The next kelp room yielded a 4 pound calico, which I was able to spear.
Bill Mc: We spent the night in Catalina Harbor, on the back side of the isthmus. I told Willie that it was the best anchorage on the island, and every time I've been there it has been like a mill pond. But it turned out to be the wildest night I've ever spent on a boat. The wind and waves were coming straight into the anchorage, and the boat was bouncing up and down so hard that I hardly slept a wink. I was terrified that the anchor would drag, and we would hit another boat or go ashore. And of course, it rained like hell. At about 2 AM the harbor patrol came around asking everyone how they were doing and telling us that if our anchors weren't holding we could just grab a mooring, but by that time, I didn't think we could succeed at picking one up. It would have been very hard to be up on the bow trying to pull the anchor, and I would have had a very hard time trying to control the boat, and then I doubted we could maneuver to pick up the mooring wand in the dark with all that wind, so we just stuck it out.
Needless to say, we were a bit tired by the time the sun had come up. The rain had quit, but the wind was even stiffer. We had to go at idle in very steep and high chop and swell until we made it down to the East End. We stopped at the Avalon dump, just past the quarry for one last dive. I dove the kelp bed, not quite expecting to see anything, but just luxuriating in what, for me, were such exotic and beautiful surroundings.
I can't wait to go back.
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