First Time Snorkeling

Yesterday I had my first snorkeling experience down off La Jolla shores in San Diego.  The weather was overcast and a little chilly, so I was grateful for the wet suits that were provided.  After we got all geared up and walked down to the beach, the tour guides gave us a little "safety" talk, particularly with reference to lurking bat rays (a type of sting ray) that might be hiding out on the surface as you walk out into the ocean.  Apparently if you step directly on them, it pisses them off and they'll sting you, so what you do is this "ray shuffle," which is basically like the moonwalk with big flippers on.  Walking normally (forward motion) with flippers on is already hard enough outside of the water, and all but impossible in water, so walking backwards already made sense.  The guide assured us that there is only like a 1 in 17 chance of being stung by a bat ray during a dive.  I tried to feel reassured, looking around at our group of 10 or so.

So out we went, without stepping on any bat rays.  The water was really cold.  I was glad for the wet suit, especially mine because it fit quite snugly.  There were a couple of super skinny guys in our group whose wet suits did not fit very well, and they were absolutely miserable.  If a wet suit isn't skin tight, it apparently doesn't do much for you.

We split up a little and started swimming around, heads down in the water.  I got away from the group a bit, and as I was swimming, to my surprise (read: "Holy Sh**!") a bat ray slowly swam beneath me, perpendicular to my direction.  My initial reaction was to stop swimming, become upright, and start treading water, but the goggles make everything appear closer, so it looked like the ray was no more than three feet below me, and I definitely didn't want to kick it.  So instead, I kept swimming and tried not to catch its attention.  (I'm wondering if it even saw me at all, because it seemed to be taking such a leisurely morning swim.)  It was gone in a matter of seconds, and when I came up and signaled to some people, they couldn't hear me and it wouldn't have mattered by then anyway.  Here are some shots of what it looked like (no I didn't take any pictures):

This was my first encounter with any sea creature, so I was a little rattled, but no harm done so I kept swimming.  The tour guides said that the visibility was great that day, but the water seemed pretty murky so I would hate to have been out there on a "bad" day.  The murky water already made it a little creepy, since things could come in and out of visibility relatively quickly.

I swam back over to the group and kept swimming around, seeing some fish down in the "sea grass" or whatever you'd call the stuff we were looking at.  At one point I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the back half of a long fish with spots on it.  It was swimming away so I only saw it for an instant and didn't think much of it.  Talking to my friend later, we determined it might have been a leopard shark (which was the purpose of this particular snorkeling tour).  After googling leopard sharks, sure enough, that appears to be what I saw:

So all in all, it was a pretty good trip.  We were only out there for maybe 30 minutes tops, but I think I was the only person who saw anything other than sea bass or other little fish.  Guess I lucked out.  But next time I think I'd like to go somewhere tropical where the water is clearer and warmer.