Sea-wolves; or, happy divers at Pt. Lobos.I've mentioned my old surf-mat, circa 1978, with all the poetry and the Greek naiad eyes in permanent marker (pre-Sharpie days, my friends), and on that 'mat you can still read a popular 19th-century poem called "The Sea-Wolf," though I can't quite read those markings enough to tell you the poet's name. I'll have to do some research and report back. (It may be summer, but those words bring the daily classroom right to me, happily so.) I'll blog on that 'mat, just as soon as I take a good photo and decipher all the faded poems and sayings. ("Kiss my ab"--as in abalone--is still legible.)
Here are two 20th-century sea-wolves. Well, I'm definitely (and defiantly) 20th-century; Philip, my dive partner here, would probably claim to be 21st-century, and power to him, the young rascal. Carolina took the photo, for which I thank her. (If you are looking for a water-sprite, you should seek her out.) She caught Philip and myself smiling, and though we look goofy, as everyone does in neoprene, you can't blame that on her. There's nothing false about such high spirits, and Carolina documented it. That happens far less often than it should.
Pt. Lobos, Carmel, CA. Early December, 2009, though doesn't it look like a wonderful summer day? (Not a summer day in Carmel, though, since there would be fog, lots of it.) Glorious day. Great temps, 60's and even low 70's, on land; possibly high 50's in the water. However, visibility in the water was quite poor: five feet at best? I recall Philip keeping even with my fins just to not lose me; I was checking every half-minute or so. I was so glad he was sticking tight; I didn't want to get separated and lose dive-time just reconnecting at the surface. We headed out, moving along the alley out there, hugging the rocky configurations to the left, and headed back, still hugging that same side. Lots of fish, however unclear, and fun in the surge, but that's why you dive, good viz or not.
The high points of this dive were (a) when the big ling cod pushed us aside to return to his favorite crevice and (b) when we managed to navigate right back to our starting point without undue surface swimming or kelp-crawling. That last blessing was pure luck, as I recently discovered; in my latest dive at Pt. Lobos, I navigated my partner and myself into a long kelp-crawl without enough air or weight (a different story) to leap-frog our way back to the boat-channel and launch zone.
I'm going surfing and free diving tomorrow: Cowell's Beach, Santa Cruz. Lindamar in Pacifica is my back -up. I haven't surfed in a long time, and I've only progressed to being an apprentice (don't-wannabe-kook) anyway. After a session reminding myself how much I should have been surfing already (best prep) or doing more pop-ups (2nd best), I think I'll swim out with a camera and try to document some happy surfers. Looking at Carolina's photo here has given me that idea.
"Touch magic, and pass it on." (Terri Windling? Charles de Lint? Robert Graves? William Butler Yeats? The Waterboys? Read Windling's The Wood Wife; de Lint's Memory and Dream; Graves' Homer's Daughter; and Yeats' "At Baile's Strand." Listen to the Waterboys' Fisherman's Blues.) "Touch magic, and pass it on": Jane Yolen, those Merlin stories, I think.
By the way, that's me on the left. I think my tank is hanging a bit low here, a habitual error. I position the tank low because I don't want to hit the tank with the back of the head as I look up and about while diving, but the tank has been slipping down in the pack a bit too much the last few dives. What goes down could come up. In a heavy surf-exit, that could matter. At Lobos, at this protected entry/exit, no big deal; at a steep beach like Monastery, now, I could knock myself out. Wouldn't that be truly goofy? I'd better fix that.
