Travel, red tides, storms and swell conspired to keep me out of the water for almost 2 months. sea_otter was in the same boat and, having signed up for Rec3 in January, wanted to go out and do some easy dives with skills and ascent practice thrown in.
Breakwater was jam packed with a ton of classes catching up on lost time over the last few weeks. We swam out to the Mid Reefs, found a spot that wasn't already occupied by a float and dropped down. Basic 5 went OK although I do tend to rise 2-3ft while doing the mask removal and replacement. After a round of that, we did our first ascent next to a stalk of kelp which ended up being a bit of a clusterfrick. Once I got to 20ft, I lost buoyancy and was moving around a LOT to try and not pop up. I ended up getting my leg tangled up in the kelp in the last 10ft. We did this a couple more times with Ouvea keeping an eye on us to make sure neither of us committed harakiri. The ascents were improving but still a bit of a clown show.
-> 50min, 32ft, 53F
A couple of slices of cold pizza later, Ouvea joined us for a dive along the wall. There wasn't much life out today but it was still a fun and leisurely dive with a couple of Pacific sea nettles bombing us now and then.
-> 55min, 39ft, 51F- U