Note: I wrote this article less than a year after I began diving, before Howard and I were married. I felt certain at the time that I would retain my passion for diving for many years, but little did I know that years later it would become such an important part of my life, and an integral part how I earned my living

Pre-Dawn Quiet
Michele Hall

The fog outside was almost as thick as the fog in my head. Curled up in my warm bunk, my body didn’t want to budge. But something kept nagging at me, telling me I should respond to a tug at my shoulder.

Michele in 1975

We’d been planning this dive trip for a couple of weeks. I thought the guys were nuts when they suggested it, but looking for new dive experiences is one of my favorite pastimes. So I signed up for the Bottom Scratcher boat trip, along with nineteen other adventurous souls.

The plan for the day was going to be slightly different than most diving trips on the Bottom Scratcher. When a charter is going out to San Clemente Island, the boat usually leaves port at midnight and arrives at the day’s first dive spot at around 7am, just in time for a pre-breakfast dive. But this trip was different. The boat departed at 8pm Friday evening, and dropped anchor at Pyramid Cove at 3am. It was about 3:15 when my body was trying to ignore the tugging at my shoulder, but my mind was saying, “Get up . . . this is going to be FUN!”

Now, there are many ways to define ‘fun.’ The old reliable standby, Daniel Webster, favors the definition “What provides amusement or enjoyment.” Well, today we were going to expand on that definition, while at the same time participating in an experience long to be remembered: an early morning, pre-dawn dive.

So what’s so special and fun about getting up at 3:15 in the morning and jumping into the cold water of the Pacific Ocean? To start with, seeing 19 sleepy bodies milling around the front deck of a 65-foot boat, suiting up, gathering dive lights and checking and rechecking camera equipment to be sure all is properly assembled (a flooded camera is not fun), is a chuckle in itself.

For me, the fun really started when I felt my fins slash through the water’s surface, the ocean flooded my wetsuit, and my body began to adjust to the change in temperature. As I floated on the surface surrounded by darkness, waiting for my dive buddy, Howard Hall, to join me, I took a compass reading and then glanced up to the sky. It’s not often that a city-dweller has the opportunity to experience this kind of quiet and see such a clear, cloudless sky, highlighted by so many sparkling, twinkling stars. It was almost as if they were applauding our early morning energy. And then, there it was -- a shooting star!! That must be a good omen for the dive!

As I let the air out of my BC and began my descent I could feel the ocean’s chill completely surround me. I knew the boat was anchored in 50 feet of water, so I wasn’t concerned about descending too deep. In the silence, it seemed that I drifted this way for minutes, but in reality it was only about 30 seconds. When I turned on my underwater light, I could see that Howard and I were approaching the bottom. We oriented ourselves, and Howard signaled for me to follow him.

Lights in hand, we began exploring the darkened undersea world. At a time when I knew my friends in San Diego were asleep, so were the sea creatures we found at Pyramid Cove. From the larger sheephead and rockfish who made their beds between rocks and under overhangs, to the colorful Garibaldi and nudibranchs, they all seemed to be floating in an eerie state of suspension. This was very different from the activity found during a dive in daylight. During the day, just about the only way to get very close to a sheephead or Garibaldi is by offering them bait, often in the form of an opened sea urchin. At night, we found we were easily approaching these sleeping fish. When we saw a good sized lobster prancing across the ocean floor, we had to sternly remind ourselves that it was not lobster season.

Since Howard and I both had our cameras, we spent much of the dive taking pictures of our respective ‘finds.’ My subjects were so cooperative, I almost felt as if I was cheating. I would have no good excuse for not getting some good photos during this dive.

Michele in 1975

Before long the aquatic activity began to increase. Dawn was approaching in the topside world above us, and the world below was waking up. Howard and I stopped taking pictures and watched the animals we’d been photographing in their stillness just moments earlier as they began stirring. The environment was changing before our eyes.

Long before I felt ready to end this dive, I felt another tug at my shoulder. As I looked to my right, I saw Howard pointing to his pressure gauge. I hated to admit it, but I, too, was getting low on air and my Scubapro decompression meter was warning me I better start ascending and heading back to the boat.

Swimming back to the boat on the ocean’s surface, I watched the sky as it got lighter and lighter. Back on the boat, with a cup of coffee in hand and the aroma of breakfast being cooked in the galley, I warmed my chilled body under the early morning sun.

We made three more dives before heading back to San Diego. The boat trip was filled with the usual revelry and story telling, eating dinner and making ice cream sundaes for dessert. In recounting what I’d seen that day for my dive log, I realized that little was needed on the written page for me to remember the peaceful and tranquil feelings of my first pre-dawn dive.