Chris' Dive Experiences: A Harbor Seal In Need Of A Hug, La Jolla Cove (Part 2)

Photo Courtesy of Margo Sanchez

After being surprised by the discovery that I had a seal tugging on my fin, I floated there just staring at the curious little guy. The seal again gave my fin a good bite and tug and looked up at me. We stared at each other a couple more seconds and then the seal ascended toward the surface. I motioned to Lesley, asking if she saw what happend. She indicated she had been right next to me and saw the whole thing. We both had a smile on our face as we turned to continue to swim toward shore.

Less than a minute later I felt something grab and pull at me good. I looked up as the seal came down right in front of my mask. Instead of taking off, like they usually do when they are playing, it moved within a foot of me. At this point I was starting to get real excited knowing that this was going to be something really special. Again the seal was staring at me with it’s dark soulful eyes as I just sat there not making any sudden moves, trying not to breathe too much so as not to scare it off. I think he sensed that I wasn’t going to freak out or try and hurt him, so the seal came right to me with it’s fins open as if it wanted a hug. I slowly put my arms around the seal. It just sat there looking up at me and checking out my regulator and mask. This embrace lasted a few more seconds before I felt it easing away, so I let go. The seal turned and slowly ascended to the surface. I then turned to look for Lesley, completely flooding my mask as I smiled from ear to ear! After clearing my mask, I could see that Lesley was hooting and hollering and had a big smile all her own.

We got our bearings and continued on our way into shore when again I felt the seal grabbing and this time biting my hood. As I looked up to find the seal I felt something grabbing my arm. I turned and found the seal swimming side by side with me, holding my arm in between its fins. It held on for a while as I continued to swim before letting go and swimming around, stopping right in front of me. This time it didn’t want a hug, but floated on its side right in front of me. I reached out and started to scratch it’s side. It seemed to really enjoy this. It didn’t take long for the seal to figure this whole thing out and turned to get its belly and neck scratched. This continued for a couple of minutes as it floated in front of me, turning to get it’s back and the top of its head scratched too. After all this the seal turned and looked at me one last time before ascending.

This is one of my favorite diving moments. To think this ranks a close second to diving within arm’s reach of a great white shark, and I didn’t have to pay or sign my life away to do it. Moment like this make me realize the great diving that we have right here at home.

Chris' Dive Experiences: A Harbor Seal In Need Of A Hug, La Jolla Cove (Part 1)

Photo Courtesy of Lesley Alstrand

Waking up early is never too easy on your day off. And in San Diego, if you want to do a shore dive, you need to set your alarm and get up and out the door, usually while it’s still dark, to get a good parking spot. This Friday was one of those occasions. We arrived at La Jolla Cove just after sunrise, checked the conditions, geared up and started our kick out. On a usual morning kick out at the cove there’s a bevy of action around you that keeps you entertained, including sea lions barking and jumping from the rocks to check you out, squadrons of pelicans skimming the surface of the ocean on their way up and down the coast, to hundreds of cormorants leaving their nests to go out and hunt.

Once Lesley and I tired of kicking, we took a heading on the buoy, descended and started our dive. We knew we were near the buoy as we started to enter the edge of the kelp forest that grows at the Cove. Diving through the kelp today was beautiful with 10 to 15 feet of visibility allowing a lot of sunlight to shine down through the kelp. As we dove in, out, around and through the gently swaying strands of kelp, it reminded me how lucky I was to to be able to enjoy this right where I live, even if I do have to get up early in the morning. When we reached the buoy chain, we stopped and looked up to enjoy the picturesque view of the sunlight flickering through the kelp.  It was then I noticed something big cutting through the kelp toward the buoy chain. It was a giant black sea bass. The black sea bass made a pass right above us, while we remained on the bottom, sitting still and hoping it would turn and come in for a closer look at us. As we waited we noticed another smaller black sea bass swim by us, heading the same way as the first one. After a couple of minutes of sitting and waiting we turned to leave and were startled to see this huge face peeking through a kelp strand right next to us. The larger black sea bass was just sitting there checking us out. Knowing we had spotted him, he then moved along, staying just out of reach before disappearing into the kelp.

Lesley and I continued on, in and out of the edge of the kelp, seeing the loads of life you normally see while diving the Cove. We reached our turnaround time and started the equally long dive back toward the shore. We were diving along, looking in the crevices at lobster, urchin and some abalone, when all of a sudden I felt a strong tug on my fin. I turned expecting Lesley to be behind me, wanting to show me something, but instead found a chunky harbor seal with it’s huge cute eyes staring back at me.

Bigger is Better - Right?

I hear people saying, "This camera is 14 megapixels, so it must be better than my old one because it is only 10 megapixels."  In fact, there is a new camera coming to the market that takes 36 megapixel photographs and I am sure there are some folks that will drop everything to buy this camera just for that big number.  But is megapixel size the best way to choose a camera?

Pixels

To answer that question, you first must understand what a megapixel is.  Digital cameras have a sensor in them that records the light that you allow to hit it.  The sensor is made up of millions of little squares or pixels in a grid.  If you multiply the number of pixels on the horizontal row by the number of pixels in the vertical row you will get the total number of pixels on the sensor.  For example, a 3 MP camera has 2,048 (horizontal) x 1,536 (vertical) pixels for a total of 3,145,728 pixels or 3 MP (mega indicating million).  By contrast, most computer screens only display 1,074 x 768 or 0.8 MP and a 4" x 6" print only requires 640 x 480 or 0.3 MP resolution to look good and 1600 x 1200 or 2 MP for best quality.

So why do the camera manufacturers shout about the MP of their latest, greatest camera so much?  Mostly to get you to buy a new one.  If you remain perfectly content with your current camera, and only replace it when you have tripped the shutter so much that it dies, they would go out of business.  So instead they have found a feature that is relatively easy to upgrade and re-release the camera with minimal improvements other than the size of the sensor.  And they only need to increase the sensor size by 40% to double the number of MPs!

Camera Sensor

Why then would anyone want a camera with 36 MP?  If you believe what I have written so far, then you can buy an old 2 MP camera cheap and be good to go.  That is true.  You would really only want more MPs for two reasons.  One, if you want to make ginormous prints and two, if you plan on doing much editing of your photos.  Every edit you make in your photo editing software actually degrades the photo slightly.  If a photo requires heavy editing you may degrade the pixels so much that it looks like it was shot on a camera with a small sensor.  The best solution for that is to shoot a good quality photo in camera rather than to edit something into a good photo, which is what we strive to teach you in The Dive Shack's Digital Underwater Photography classes.

What should you look for when shopping for a camera?  Sensor quality is much more important than sensor size.  You can find reviews on cameras at http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/ or http://www.popphoto.com/ to name a couple of sites.  Once you have narrowed your choices down based on the reviews and your budget, you want to handle the camera and housing if possible.  Shoot the camera changing the ISO, shutter speed and aperture.  Are the controls easy to change?  Are they within easy reach?  Can you comfortably hold the housing or is it too big/small?  Do you have full manual and creative control of your photos with this camera or does it just allow you to change one of the three major controls?  Talk to photographers who shoot the models you are considering and ask their opinion on the set up.  You can even rent cameras and underwater housings to try them out for a few days before you buy them.  So do your research, and find a camera you love!

Photos courtesy of www.digicamhelp.com