Last month I went scuba diving for the first time in… three years?! How is it possible it’s been that long? I was nervous I’d forget the basics or be uncomfortable underwater since so much time has passed, but it was like riding a bike… or the aquatic equivalent of that.

What brought me back from this unintended underwater sabbatical? My friends Tamar, Nathan, and Amy had signed up for a scuba trip to the Channel Islands just off the coast of southern California, and I had been dying to go there someday to visit the underwater kelp forests. Seven years ago (in the very early stages of this blog!) my sister and I went to the Channel Islands for a sea cave kayak tour and then to camp overnight and go hiking. It was a very memorable trip. We snorkeled at the surface and peeped the kelp forest below, and even though I didn’t have my scuba certification at the time, I remember thinking how cool it would be to meander in and out of the giant kelp “trees” sprouting up from the ocean floor. Here is a photo I took on that trip:

Cut to many years later: my friends alert me they’ve signed up for this scuba trip. It is expensive ($140 for the boat ride, $60 to rent gear, $20 gas to drive there, $15 in tips) and I think long and hard about going, ultimately deciding this is too good to pass up. I rent my gear from Hollywood Divers in Studio City (shout out to them — they were very helpful in giving me a refresher course on the gear). I carpool with Amy at 5:30am for the hour-plus drive to Ventura harbor. We meet up with Tamar and Nathan, and hop on the Peace boat with Eco Dive Center for our two-hour boat ride to Anacapa. We’ll be out there all day for three dives, returning to the harbor around 5pm. They serve several meals and snacks on the boat, all of them delicious. It’s a long day with extra work built into the day before and after (picking up the gear rental, rinsing it in fresh water after the dives, then dropping off the gear rental the following day). Overall it’s a lot of expense and effort, and not something I can afford on the regular, but I’m glad I did it.

Let’s get to the photos! Here is the Ventura harbor:

And here we are on the Peace boat, ready for that 7:30a departure time:

Two hours later, we approach Anacapa island:

We swim in full wetsuits with hoods and gloves. Even though it’s June, it is COLD.

Tamar says hi:

And here’s Nathan and Amy too — the four of us make a fun group.

We do our first two dives in the same spot, coming back to the boat for an hour or so of surface interval time.

Upon descending, we encounter the kelp forest immediately. It is glorious.

I forgot how incredible it is to dip below the surface and encounter a whole new world.

It is easy to get tangled in the kelp, but if you find yourself in that predicament it snaps off without too much effort. At first I feel terrible that we are destroying this ecosystem and how can they even allow divers down here?! But then I hear that the kelp grows approximately two feet per day, which eases my concerns. I don’t have to feel too guilty for the times I got tangled up and ripped the kelp. Nathan demonstrates:

I find the kelp to be rather elegant, despite the fact that it’s basically seaweed.

We come back to the boat for a meal and to wait for our next dive.

We complete three dives total but I’m condensing the photos from the last two dives into this next set.

There are occasional fish but not a huge amount:

We pop up in the shallow waters near Anacapa for a moment before going back under the surface.

Following our last dive, we hang out in the hot tub on the boat and enjoy dessert — they make fresh baked cookies and serve it with vanilla ice cream. It’s heaven. We also have beers. (Thank you Tamar & Nathan!)

And now for a video highlights reel…

What a fun trip. Thanks to Tamar & Nathan for inviting me, and Amy for being our dive master! This was unlike any other dive I’ve done in that the official dive master stays on the boat the whole time. So as a group of four, we stuck together and elected Amy as our personal dive master, since she’s a total pro and an excellent leader. She not only kept us safe and monitored our air supply, but she also navigated us with a compass underwater and popped up to the surface if we became disoriented. Thank you Amy for shouldering that extra responsibility!

Also, this was my first-ever dive in the United States. How crazy is that? I’ve done approximately 35-40 dives in other countries, but none here. Glad to have finally tested out the waters on my home shore.