the craziest night dive everr

So eric & i went night diving last night..by ourselves. all alone. it was such a..idk, rite of passage? i'm a grownup! :) but anyway. incredible, no joke. well first off, we went to laguna beach, a place called crescent bay. and you park in residential areas. and get ready in residential areas. which includes getting on the skin, the wetsuit, the booties, the gloves, setting up the b/c and the octopus and the tank, getting fins and snorkel/mask close by, putting the weight belt on..which all takes about 20-30 mins depending. then you double check everything. then you put everything on. the 22 lbs of weight on a belt, the b/c like a jacket with the tank and octo connected on your back, then carrying your mask and fins down to the water with you. which was a flight of about 50 stairs. i think we were carrying at least, well, 22lbs plus whatever the tank & stuff weighs, which is a lot. i'm gonna guess around 50 lbs. 45 lbs. something like that. but all the while, we were in a residential area..and there was across the street, about three drunk men and one woman on their balcony, and we were their entertainment for the half an hour we were getting ready. one of them yelled at us, called us brother and sister, and marines...then the woman started taking pictures? wtf? but whatever. (how did they know we were brother and sister??)

anyway. after that was fantastic. once we were actually in the water, fabulousss!! we saw a shark right off, a little horned shark. it was a decent size too for a horn shark, about two feet. then we saw a moray eel and eric decided to knife an urchin and cut it open to see if the moray would eat it. but it didnt. then we saw a pretty dang big lobster, and eric caught it. then handed it to me. it was crazy. when i let it go, it flipped away..they swim really strangely. it actually made me laugh underwater. well my flashlight stopped working after a bit, so i just prayed really hard that erics would stay lit. it is a little freaky to be under the water in the dark, i'm not gonna lie. i was a little freaked. and then we saw another horn shark, more morays...i was looking for an octopus but we didnt see one that night. a little disappointing. until along came...something HUGE. neither of us could tell what it was at first. it was about our armspan long, fat, and spotted. at first i thought it was a sea bass or something and those things are FREAKY. but then, after eric jumped back a bit, seeing as it was right close to us about three feet away, we saw that it was a seal. a SEAL.

it looked something like that. spotted. i'm not up on my seal identification but it was spotted & played in our flashlight until we got out of the water practically. that was the last like half of our dive. he would just come in our flashlight and play on the rocks next to us. eric said he was going to eat us. he was pretty scared of the seal. every time it would come he would immediately back paddle away from it. but then would keep his light on it so he knew where it was. it was sooo funny. i loved it. it was kinda scary, and i swear it sucked up most of my oxygen cuz the adrenaline was pumping like crazy, but it was well WELL worth it. most amazing dive ever. i've never ever been that close to a wild marine mammal before, and this was AMAZING. after we got up and out..which was a difficult process seeing as my tank was almost falling out (my fault) and i got knocked over by the waves coming in & had to crawl out on my hands and knees with that much weight on me. FUN STUFF. then climbed up those 50 stairs after kicking in from about a hundred feet out from the shore then crawling in. it was lovely. and i'm sooo super sore right now. but it was a good workout. and i was determined not to give up. i did it! eric was super sweet..i can't believe how thoughtful he is. he really is. i couldnt ask for a better brother. :) then we drove home. & i finally got to be around 1:15am. it was an intense night. and i loved it. YAY FOR SCUBA!!!