After 2 years of hard work Loek, Mar, and I attended Marlies’ graduation ceremony in Oakland on June 20th. A big congratulations to Marlies in earning her Masters of Career Development. The ceremonies were held at the Paramount Theater in Oakland with Martin Sheen as the guest speaker. We also decided to stay the weekend and check out a few interesting places in San Francisco. Photos are here.

I talked Harry Wong into letting me dive with him, Ian, and Chris at Lobos on Sunday. The plan was to go out to Twin Peaks, spend 15 mins out there poking around and enjoying the area then back in again. We were diving 21/35 and doing our deco on 50%. Harry was on a long body Gavin, Ian was diving a short body, and Chris and I were on X’s. Once we were out of the cove the vis opened up quite nicely and once past Beto’s reef we estimated it to be around 70-80′. Since there was no sun up it was a bit dim but you could still make out structures from quite a distance. The team stayed together very well and once we made it out to TP, Harry requested a few ‘fly bys’ for his video shots. Ian and I spotted a number of big Tritonia festiva nudis and the usual rockfish were in the neighborhood. We scootered around the end and headed back in towards the Sisters then over to Betos till we reached our deco depth. After deco we fought our way back through the kelp and back to the boat ramp. Our surface interval consisted of lunch, of course, and chatting to Chris about diving in the LA area. After lunch we decided to do our next dive out to Granite Point Wall. Chris was diving with his wife so it was just Ian, Harry, and me. After arriving at the wall Harry again wanted to some video so I aimed my scooter right at him through a nice rock crevice and attempted to go over the camera. One small problem, his light got in the way… clunk! “Ahead all stop captain”. No damage and a lot of laughing.. we continued on. After we left the wall and were over the sand patch Ian found what looked like a stingray, except it was rock hard. We guessed it was an old whale bone and after playing with that for a while we headed back around to Middle Reef and finished our deco then scootering back in on the surface. Great day of diving, no sun, but can’t have it all.

Marlies and I attended the BB King concert at the Mountain Winery on Friday, the day after Fleetwood Mac. The winery is a great place to see concerts, especially since they have redone it with nice seating and have an option of a great buffet before the concert. This was the first time seeing BB King and this was probably not the best way to see him. He is getting quite old now and I would say half of the concert was just him telling stories. Many of his songs did not finish but it was a different atmosphere compared to other concerts. At the end when everyone was leaving he just sat on the stage and encouraged people to come up, have their pictures signed, shake his hand, and say hello. How many music stars can you say that about? I was pretty impressed by that aspect. Short clip here.

Marlies and I saw Fleetwood Mac at the HP Pavilion on May 21st. It was my second time seeing the band as I saw them first when their Rumors Album came out around 1975. I cant recall much about the first concert but I was stunned at how great they were on Thursday. Absolutely one of the best bands I have seen in a long time. Short clip from the concert.

After a couple of years of seeing my fellow divers compete in the yearly NCUPS contest I decided this year was my turn. I paid my $75 entrance fee and met everyone at Aquarius dive shop for the sign up. Harry B. and Dionna H. were my buddies and spotters of all good things photogenic. First decision after getting my T-Shirt and instructions was where to dive first. There are strict rules against any type of boat diving or propulsion help, such as scooters. All the dives therefore, must be done via the beaches, and since Lobos is restricted by the reservation system, it is also off limits. We decided our first dive would be South Monastery. A first for me and I was not too impressed with the North side last time but since I was taking only macro shots and diving a single tank, it sounded ok. The waves were low with a bit of swell and the visibility was decent so we stayed for about 75mins and I took 208 shots. We then headed out to Coral Street, had a bit of lunch, then back in for our second dive. The kelp here was really nice with all the sun shining through and another 70 or so minutes and 130 shots at this location. We were out of the water at about 2:45 and I still had to get to backscatter to review all my shots and pick 3 for each category that I was going to enter. I arrived at the shop at 3pm, found a seat and started going through the images. An hour later I was pretty happy with my selections and submitted them for judging which would take place the next day. The evening was filled with a BBQ dinner and a presentation by Andy Sallmon. The next day was again filled with activities. From 9am - 11am, Mary Lynn Price presented “Through a Video Journalist’s Eyes”, and after a lunch break Ken Howard presented Effective Composition with a critique of photos that were submitted by any volunteers. Finally the judges presented the winners which included myself! Here is my second place winning photo:

The rest of the photos are here.