Sixty feet down off the Channel Islands, the giant kelp climbs from the reef in columns and the whole water column turns gold when the sun gets low enough to come through sideways. Garibaldi patrol their patches of rock and will see you off if you linger. Sheephead work the edges. Harbor seals appear at your shoulder, look you over, and leave before you have got the camera up.
This is the dive we keep coming back to. It is not the deepest or the clearest water in California, but it is the one that feels most like a place rather than a site — a forest, with weather and light and residents.
Printed across the back, framed the way the old dive charts were framed.
