We had planned to go to Shaw’s Cove on Memorial Day weekend, but the late night club music upstairs (a recurring problem with the new renters up there) put a stop to that. Snorkeling requires a lot of energy, not to mention a long drive, and neither can be done on three hours of sleep.

So, we had to patiently wait for the next opportunity. I convinced a friend from work and his wife to join us. Unfortunately, the surf was high that day and neither of them got far without wetsuits. Sam was still studying for her big test (more on that later), so she couldn’t go in the water at all. Two other friends met us there, one of them an avid ocean swimmer. He and I spent hours way out in the kelp forests while the rest of the crew sunned themselves on the beach.

The waves near the shore were so high that they didn’t leave any sand on the bottom for rays to hide in, so despite hunting diligently, I didn’t see a single stinger.

This was also the first time taking the A7 under water. The camera would probably perform admirably, but the case was such a hassle that it became a fight to shoot anything but the inside of the case. The difficulty is that these bags are made with extending lens portions for zoom lenses. I just have the short prime. Underwater that extendable piece just keeps doing its thing and I end up getting a lot of vignetting or just shooting sideways. I shot over 1,400 photos, but the only decent ones, less than a hundred, are those you see in the Flickr gallery above.

After the beach, we went to Brodard for dinner. The good feelings of the day were marred when we discovered some idiot scraped Sam’s bumper while we were inside.