Diving Before Work - Diver's Cove in Laguna Beach

The downside of these pre-work dives is that I have to roll out of bed at 4:45 am and drive out to Laguna before the sun is even up.  But hey, we all know sleep is overrated when compared against outdoor activities and I find a quick hour under water makes for a rather pleasant start to to the average workday.

This week I was only in town for two days after arriving back from a 5 day trip to Buckskin Gulch / Paria Canyon in Utah so this was my only chance to get out.  Fortunately the predicted 30% chance of rain Thursday night hadn't appeared so off we went!


This time I was buddying up with Derek Tse a friend I know through my Sierra Club activities who also dives and happens to have a somewhat flexible work schedule on fridays.


We decided to head back to the south end of Diver's Cove since I felt like there was still a lot more exploring to be done after last week.


By 6:20 am we were kicking our way out past the rocks looking for a spot deep enough to drop down.  Unlike last weeks dives we didn't have much of a sunrise thanks to the overcast skies.

The water felt noticeably warmer than last week and my dive computer reported a toasty 60 degrees.  This was the first dive in a while where I didn't feel chilled by the end which is hopefully a trend going forward since it's going to take me awhile to work up to dry suit diving with everything else going on.

Dropping down vis was only about 10 ft and there was a fair amount of surge but hey, par for the course.


We started out by finding something I'd never seen before: an angel shark!


Derek caught sight of him and it was nice enough to hold still while I got a few pictures.


We also saw the usual collection of lobsters hanging out under the various rocks.  We found a few that were quite large but the only one he managed to snag was this little guy who was released right after the picture.


We made it a bit further south this time and found a decent amount of kelp which would have made for some nice pictures if the vis was a bit better.


We also came across 4 or so horn sharks though they were hard to get a picture of as they're generally buried in the vegetation.


We were back at the cars by 7:40 am I was headed off for work not long after.

Hopefully next week will be an eventful one dive-wise with a few morning dives and a night dive planned!