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My first trip to Southern California’s Channel Islands National Park and Marine Sanctuary in 1987 to dive among the kelp forests was going to be spectacular. But all I could think about was my hemorrhoids.

I’d already whet my appetite for this type of cold water diving thanks to several trips to the amazing Monterey Bay Aquarium, which opened in 1984. At the time, it was the first of its type to feature a living kelp forest. But since my PADI Open Water certification in 1985, I’d been wanting to get wet in a real underwater forest.

A Trip on The M/V Vision.
I had booked a three-day dive trip on the 84-foot-long, 33-passenger M/V Vision dive boat out of Santa Barbara with a few friends in mid-November. This would be my second liveaboard experience after one in  Belize the prior year. (NOTE: This was 22 years before its sister ship, the M/V Conception, erupted in fire, killing 34 of the 39 aboard. The Vision’s safety systems have since been upgraded.)

On the half-day drive from San Francisco, I pictured myself doing a giant stride off our liveaboard, clearing my ears, looking for the divemaster, then slowly weaving my way downward through the thick kelp. As I had seen in the world-famous, 28-foot-high aquarium exhibit in Monterey, I could tilt my head towards the sun to see how its rays filtered the light of the swaying kelp fronds while I spotted brightly colored Garibaldi (California’s state fish), giant sea bass, and many other fish.

But due to unfortunate timing, I was suffering from a painful case of swollen veins in my nether region just before driving south. Sitting in a car for five hours each way was not ideal, but a special “donut” pillow helped to partially soothe the savage beast.

My doctor also recommended Preparation H, so I had a tube in my dive bag, and I dutifully applied it four times a day. (More on that later.)

“The Queen of The Coast”.
Anyway, formerly owned by Truth Aquatics, this liveaboard was very comfortable, with 30 bunk beds, showers, heads, a full galley with three meals daily, and a sundeck. There were six in my group that dove together, day and night.

Two of the younger male divers were also spearfishing for lobsters. One macho guy climbed aboard, proudly showed me his air gauge pointing to zero, and exclaimed, “Drained it, dude!” Since we’d been taught to always plan for a safety stop at 750 PSI and return to the boat with 500, I thought that was very irresponsible.

We did 10 dives over three days, exploring Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz Islands with typical fall conditions: a maximum depth of 60 feet, an average depth of 30, viz between 5 to 30 feet, water temperatures of 65 to 67 degrees F., and pleasant air temps of 55 to 60 degrees F.

I noted in my logbook and memory bank that the first dive was “Cool, but not cold. Lots of kelp. Great view from below, looking up to the surface. Saw one harbor seal, got caught in the kelp a little, then OK.”

Dealing With The Currents.
On other dives, I dealt with lots of surge, especially closer to the islands, which took my buddy and me left and right a few feet at a time, but we got used to being tossed around in the currents.

Then a miraculous thing happened. After the fourth of the ten dives, my painful little hemorrhoid problem just disappeared. Why? Because I was using the equivalent of a saltwater sitz bath in my wetsuit to inadvertently “Ditch the itch”.

Problem solved, even if it was a bit embarrassing.

Night Dives With Five Foot Viz.
We took two night dives to about 30 feet. The first had a restricted visibility of only five feet because of silt in the water, which we illuminated with our flashlights. We experienced scarily claustrophobic conditions, only seeing a few fish in the kelp forests.

The next night, the fifth dive of the second day, it was very dark, but with a bit better viz of about 10 feet. Currents were still a bit strong, but the more I dove in it, the more acclimated I got.

The highlight of the trip was spotting a lobster and an octopus on the same dive, a rare double header for a relatively new diver like me.

The Bottom Line.
With 10 dives in three days, this was a very busy trip, and I’m very glad that I finally did a Southern California liveaboard.

On another note, in the advertising world, I always joked with fellow copywriters that just about anyone could write commercials to sell beer or cars. But I always knew that the guys who wrote those hemorrhoid ads were the true masters of persuasion.