WE'RE BOTTOMING OUT - Temperature-wise, that is. I was chatting with someone over the weekend and they mentioned that they never dove California waters because of the cold. The bad news in all of this is that the reports I'm getting this weekend all seem to contain this number: 57. As in degrees. As in cold. But the good news is that this is the time of the year when our temps generally bottom out, so we should see them starting to increase now, although obviously incrementally. Generally our peak water temps are going to be somewhere around October 1. It always amuses me to hear people talk about how there's no way they'd go diving here in December because it's too cold, but they've got no problem diving in June or July, when the water is actually colder than it is at the end of the year.

VISIBILITY SEEMS OK - Maybe nothing to write home about but Captain Kim Lancaster of the Cee Ray tells me that it was 30-50' at Catalina the last few days and that they had stellar conditions at Little Farnsworth (just outside of Avalon) to the point where they were able to do two morning dives there. DJ Mansfield of Beach Cities Scuba was down in Laguna over the weekend and said they had around 20 feet or so. So not too bad over all. Plus we're already starting to get reports of Giant Sea Bass sightings in the Avalon Underwater Park.

CHAMBER DAY IS APPROACHING - May 1 is the date in case you haven't heard. But now is when we really do the final push to fill those last boat spots (we've got about 10 left), fill the last dinner seats (a bit over 30 to go), and hopefully get more people to sign up for the Flying Dutchman (74 so far), and donate to the Chamber Challenge (at $62,000+ as of Noon Sunday). So hopefully you'll do your part to support out local Chamber and will go to www.chamberday.org and donate whatever you can in whatever form works for you.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGH IT WAS SAFE - It was long-thought that places like a kelp forest were safe places to hide from aggressive predators (which usually means sharks). Oooooops. Maybe not. Scientists in South Africa were able to outfit eight Great White Sharks with cameras to see how they hunted prey. And they were quite surprised, when they reviewed the resulting 28 hours of footage, to see the sharks plunge right into and through kelp forests and other areas thought to provide safe refuge, when they were hunting prey. Disturbing thought perhaps, but interesting video to watch: SHARKS ON THE HUNT

BUT ON A LIGHTER NOTE - My commercials agent sent this video to me which is fascinating on a number of levels. It shows what can only be described as Wind Walkers, which are these fairly complex machines (many of which look like they made out of toothpicks) that move and gyrate across an open stretch of sand when the wind blows. That the machines exist is pretty amazing in and of itself. The bigger question is: How do they get them to the beach in the first place, because they're pretty big and look rather fragile. But I think you'll enjoy this: WIND WALKERS

And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!