Saturday was a RED dive...the whole weekend was a RED campout. Saturday morning we descended on Big River...Mike Mendosa had his boat, Paul had his, and Clay had a boat...

So Mike headed out with 8 tank divers on board. Paul had three. Clay had three. Fred, Our Marin Club refugee, me, and Clay. We had engine trouble, the linkage kept popping out...he'd replaced it, but with one too long.

And it kept popping out, and that was NOT the way to be when going through the surf!

But we messed with it, perservered, put it in a different hole, and wrapped it in a zip tie. Then back to challenge the surf exit...where the river hit the waves. Challenge one was the surfers...we had to play slalom boater with the surfers.

And we made it out, past the point where I thought that it would matter, past the point where we were at risk, and a wave surprised us...Clay tried to turn and run, we hit it on the side. I thought a bit about that...mainly that I might lose a bit of gear when we flipped, but that mainly it would be an adventure.

Fred saw the haps' and ducked behind my back. I took a faceful of water, but it was fine. My new (birthday gift) boat coat took the hit, and just wicked away the water. Awesome!

Then we entered the realm of massive rollers. At least that is how it felt to me...up and down and massive! Of course, once we were returning the water was damn near to flat. Going North, uphill, is a LOT harder run then going south.

And we anchored a few hundred yards away from a submerged Rock that had the big waves breaking on it...we anchored near Paul's boat. They were all down. 38 ft of water. And down we dove!

I followed the anchor down...down to the top of a large rock. Fairly flat, some life, kind of fun. And the rock sloped down, so I followed the slope. A few cracks, but it all seemed like the same terrain. Looked at my guage and was at 75'-just like that. It felt like diving on Half Dome.

Continued on, then I could see the sand. The rock just sloped on down and into the sand. And I decided to go on down to the sand, check out the sand to rock interface. And landed on a nice weight belt. And looked up at a Ling. Looked sort of small, so I didn't shoot. Looked down at the weight belt. Then up, saw another Ling...looked bigger. So I took a shot.

Missed. Then I reflected on how narced I was. I thought about how I should just grab the weight belt and make my way up the slope a bit, 108 ft or so was a tad deep to be hanging around getting task loaded with a weight belt and a fish.

And I thought this as I started to load my gun, as I finished loading my gun, as I looked up and had a clean line on the Ling, and I put the gun aside and grabbed the weight belt, and made a special effort to get myself all settled in as I inflated the hell out of my BC so that I could get up the face of Half Dome.

It was fun being that narced early in the dive, with a nice big rock face to follow up to the anchor line, and no worries about current and getting lost and all that.

After about 10 feet I felt clear headed. And made my way up and up. My BC made a massive farting sound as the over pressure valve popped and let out a bit of air.

I got to the anchor and deflated my BC a bit, then dropped the weight belt and hung out on the top of the rock for a while. After a while Fred and Clay showed up, and Clay tied the weight belt to the anchor and we all went up. Clay zoomed (but he said within his computer's limits). Fred and I did a much longer ascent. I was well weighted, had a good time, good dive. Yeah team, etc.