Splashzone at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Since the water in Monterey was ugly Sunday we decided to head over and check out the members-only preview of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's newest exhibit: Splash Zone. Aside from cool new animals in the tropical seas part of the exhibit like the cuttlefish and sea dragons, there's a new kelp tank that makes you feel like you're right in the kelp!

The coolest part of the new exhibit has to be the hugely expanded touch pools. We poked a lot of cool Monterey critters without our regular 3mm glove barrier - who new starfish were soft?

Go check it out next time you're in town!

...as seen in the San Jose Mercury News!

We were proud to be included in this weekends
"Into The Deep" article in the San Jose Mercury News.

If you have a chance check it out at http://www.mercurynews.com/

Returning soon...DIVING!

This winter has been tough on our weekly dive trips! It seems every time we look at the forecast we aren't confident enough in the conditions to plan a group trip.

But don't worry, we haven't forgotten about diving and we'll be back to in the water shortly...stay tuned!

Preview then new online store

Since the weathers been wet and cold, and the waters looked ugly we've been spending a lot of time working on the back end of the dive shop.

The project for the last fews has been migrating over to a new online store which we're very excited to say is ready for a public preview.

check it out: http://www.aquaticdiscovery.com/zcart

AquaticDiscovery.com back up!

Don't think computers have a sense of irony?
A few days after we left for Costa Rica our main web/email server went down, no problem, that's what the back-up is for...right? Well, a few days before we got back from Costa Rica our backup went down too with a completely unrelated hardware failure.

So the last few days has been spent rebuilding servers and downloading backed-up data...grrr!

a Leopard Shark and Harbor Seals at Monastery

Eric and Nicole (diving Aquatic Discovery Nitrox fills!) just brought in some photos they took a few weeks back of a Leopard Shark being followed closely by a seal.

Leopard Sharks are very docile and, although common in Monterey, are warey of divers. It's pretty rare for divers to get close enough to get a good photo...not to mention several good photos!




Here's where to interested part of their story starts: Following the shark was a Harbor Seal which was getting so close it was being slapped in the face by the sharks tail.

Pretty Cool, huh?!?!

This is an interesting feeding behavior where the seal closely tail a shark until the shark finds a prey item and then, like a lunchroom bully, will bump the shark out of the way (and off balance) to steal the meal!

This is a great example of the fascinating and incredibly diverse environment we get to live, work and dive all the time here in California...

Now-- Go Diving!

look out.!

Store Manager, Barbara, tooling around on our trusty forklift named "Nitrox"


See her on ESPN 8 (The Ocho!) next year... :P