Story and Photos © Elaine Jobin, may not be reproduced in part or whole without advanced written permission.

I used a few vacation days to get some repairs done around the house. I couldn't be "all housework and no play" so I scheduled myself on a midweek Peace trip to Anacapa Island. I was pleasantly surprised to find a boarding ramp at the Peace instead of the stairs. Boarding ramps are great gear schlepping aids. I love the ramp on the Great Escape and now the Peace has one too.

I arrived at the Peace late on Wednesday night after the "Dive Animals" trip had returned from the last lobster hunting trip of the season. What do lobsters do when lobster season is over? Well.......

Our trip to Anacapa Island was a fairly smooth one.

It did take some motoring around the island to find good diving conditions. Visibility in some areas looked to be poor. The search gave us a little extra time to get ready. These were some of my boat mates for the day.

Only one diver confessed to calling in sick for this midweek trip. I see it more of the employers fault however. If they would just have "sick days", "vacation days", and "midweek dive days" it would totally clean up the office book keeping paper work.

Captain Kevin worked throughout the day to find us the best diving on the island. As usual he did a terrific job at putting us in the best water available. We dove sites on the backside and on the front side - places such as Coral Reef and Cat Rock. Visibility was a tolerable 20 feet or so but the water was cold - about 51 degrees. I only went for macro shots and there are some of the ones that I came up with during the course of the day.

Trish worked her usual magic in the galley. Sometimes her food may get a bad rap because it is so good that we eat too much of it and gain weight. It is our own fault. One of the lunch items was a great chicken pasta casserole in a huge dish surrounded by steamed broccoli. All I had to do was pull out lots of the broccoli with just a little pasta sauce and a chunk or two of chicken. I checked when I got home and I didn't gain so much as a quarter pound

As for the cold - needless to say we were thankful for the Peace hot tub. Fellow diver Michelle also introduced me to the "Head Factory" warmers. She gave one to me with the advice of "put it near your heart". Needless to say where it ended up. Next time, I'm going to bring two of my own. (The dive gear is bulky, the hats are ugly, a small thing I can do to help stay warm, and, beautify the sport).

During our channel crossing we were treated to a huge pod of dolphins attracted to a bait ball. I love my digital topside Sony Powershot S2IS, it does so many things well, but the shutter delay makes moving dolphin photography a challenge.

Thanks again to the Peace Crew for a great midweek dive day.

Until next time.