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In February 2018 I had the pleasure to dive for three days with a friendly group of folks aboard the Vision - a liveaboard dive boat out of Santa Barbara, CA. We dove the Pacific (southern) sides of Santa Cruz and San Miguel Islands. For most of the last year I have been shooting wide angle with my 12-24mm, but I changed it up this trip and chose to focus on the tiny critters. I used my Nikkor Micro 105mm lens on every dive.
The highlight of the trip for me was our two dives at Gull Island. There isn't much to Gull Island topside - it is barren except one small structure that operates a navigation light. The tiny island is just off the southwestern side of Santa Cruz, exposed to the open ocean. Gull Island gets lots of surge and currents and wind, but when the water is calm it is an amazing place to dive.
Surrounding Gull Island the underwater topography is truly exceptional. The kelp forests are thick. There are wide channels and rock walls covered in marine life. The amazing diversity of marine animals and topography make Gull Island one of the very best places to dive at Santa Cruz Island - among the very best places to dive in California.
On the first day of the trip we did five dives on the Pacific side of San Miguel Island - some of the very best sites the Northern Channel Islands has to offer. The kelp forests and topography and the diversity of invertebrates and fish at Wyckoff Ledge, Judith Rock, and Tyler Bight are nothing short of magical.
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I shot all these underwater images this trip with a single Inon Z240 strobe.
We dived the extreme southwest end of San Miguel at Point Bennett, where countless pinnipeds reside. The 105mm is the wrong lens for UW shots of sea lions, but I took this one from the deck of the Vision:
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