After getting some headings and info from Steding and Richard we gave it a try. Man, what a fantastic scooter dive! We were on the trigger solid for 16 minutes, cruising over sand, lot's of sea pens, and eelgrass before we hit the reef.
Scott wanted to get some pictures of scooter divers with his wide angle lens, and Jeanna was taking video. Once we got there, Scott and Jeanna clipped off, which meant I had to ham it up for the cameras, which I was happy to do
It had been at least 3 years since I'd done Alki Reef and I forgot how much I like that dive. For those who haven't done it, it's a bunch of very large piles of boulders....lot's of plumose anemones, lings, greenlings and rockfish.
We had planned to turn on thirds (max depth was 60') or 40 minutes (to ensure we had enough juice in the scooters) for the haul back. At 38 minutes we left for the return trip home. Coming back in, we played around, doing barrel rolls and such...Jeanna pulled a tight turn right to do a quick 360 and came face to face with a seal that had apparently been following behind! We continued in, in about 8' of water before surfacing. While we didn't see the seal underwater after Jeanna saw him, he was right there with us when we surfaced.
A fantastic dive and a perfect scooter dive. Too far to surface swim and we don't have to pay for a boat dive (let's not talk about how much the scooters cost).
Video posted on Youtube...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzfT9yIcXOM
Brian
