sunday. diving. well, snorkeling but diving sounds better. ok, so this was something i had wanted to do so badly but didnt think it was going to come to fruition so i didnt get my hopes up. but sunday morning uncle chris and i got up at 4:30 and met his friend steve at five and headed for the ocean. it took over an hour to get there and it was really foggy and dark when we arrived. we changed into our wetsuits, mine was pretty tight, and we hiked down to the water while trying to keep our balance on the thin trail with the extra 30 pounds of lead strapped to our waists (weight belts to help you sink when you dive because the wetsuits make you extrerely buoyant). anyways we hopped in the pleasantly inviting bubble bath quality water (52f) and were on our way to the area where the abalone were. abalone is/are a type of large mollusk with a bowl like shell. so we're out there 30 feet or so and i look over and to my delight there was a seal blinking at me from 15 feet away. he just kind of looked at me for a few seconds with its coal black eyes, flipped its tail and disappeared under the water. when chris thought we were in the right spot we left our float tubes and began to dive for the abalone. i wasnt able to get a tag for the tasty little morsels so i resorted to ljust looking for them and exploring the ocean floor 16 feet below the surface. it was incredible down there. i picked up starfish and saw interesting fish and watched an entire "field" of seagrass swaying with each wave that went by overhead. i made my way through a kelp forest with its tall stems and mop like heads. every rock was covered with some kind of colorful algae and there was something new everytime i dove. we ended up with a limit of abalone and paddled numbly to shore. surprisingly i never lost feeling in any of my limbs. we trudged up the cliff face back to the truck, changed, and headed home to clean and fry up the wonderful abalone for dinner. it was great