First try 105VR under water !

It was a misty & miserable day yesterday, we charted our usual Beach Hopper with only 5 people onboard, 3 of them are students, open water, dry suit and rescue. It's my first attempt to shoot the 105VR. Mentally I was prepared nothing worth posting going to be the result of the day and it turns out exactly that :-) We done 3 dives, water wasn't really choppy but it was good 6 ft side to side surge every where. We did Red Hat, Monterey aquarium, and El Torito. Since we have 3 students, I try to make sure things are unnoticeable in order in 8~10 ft visibility. First dive, 18 min into the dive, we got separated and had to surface after 35 min with the dry suit student low on air (he has a leaky second stage). Second dive I decided to went alone as they venture into the sandy bottom. The 105VR and D80 was lighting fast. 99% of my shots were all fired with nothing in focus, I was using AF-C, & it let me fired. While it might be quite dark at 35 ft but my focus light was quite bright as well, however, it still looks dark thru the view finder. The only 1/2 decent shot I was able to capture were something I had to brace myself to a rock or bottom and made sure I kept still so I can keep the subject within the frame and let it focus. Boy, that's not an easy task. With minimum focus distance of about a foot, the 105VR is challenging to used in Monterey. As I began to prepare my ascent, a school of 8 to 10 sea lions went up and down and around me for about 20 seconds, that was quite rewarding for the day. I will keep shooting it until I get a decent nudibranch, as it stand, seems like a steep unhill curve.