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  1. MaxBottomtime

    Return to Spongehenge

    It had been ten months since we last dived Spongehenge at Hermosa Beach Artificial Reef. Storms had knocked over the rodeo bar that the Giant Sea Bass used as a cleaning and mating site. I didn't know if we would ever return, but the ocean was calm enough for us to give it a go. This morning...
  2. MaxBottomtime

    Back to the barge

    Merry Passage and I returned to the barge off Redondo Beach this morning. I went inside to photograph the school of black croakers Merry found yesterday. Today she found two octopus nests. I guess we'll have to dive there again soon. About a decade...
  3. MaxBottomtime

    Not much to see today

    Merry Passage and I stayed close to home this morning, diving the barge a mile off Redondo Beach. Despite the decent visibility, I didn't find much to shoot. We'll try again tomorrow.
  4. MaxBottomtime

    Pushed our luck at Pt. Vicente

    Merry Passage and I went to the well once too often. We dived the pinnacles off Pt. Vicente again, but this time the visibility was poor. We anchored at the south end of the reef where it meets the sand at ninety feet. I was hoping to see more rockfish there but we saw a lot of suspended sand in...
  5. MaxBottomtime

    Diving this week

    Taking advantage of calm seas, Merry and I made two trips to the Hyperion Outfall Pipe off El Segundo and two trips to the pinnacles off Pt. Vicente. Marine life was depleted compared to before the 2014 warm water blob, even inside the Pt. Vicente MPA. Large sponges and the variety of rockfish...
  6. MaxBottomtime

    White Point Outfall Pipe this morning

    Merry Passage and I headed out in low, patchy for this morning for the White Point outfall pipes off San Pedro. I had to use RADAR and running lights most of the way. As we arrived at our destination we were greeted by a fogbow, for lack of a better word. The pipe and surrounding rocks were...
  7. MaxBottomtime

    New dive site

    Merry Passage and I dived a new spot today that I called Foothill. It's a small reef at the end of an underwater mountain range near Palos Verdes Point. I'm not sure if it's worth a return visit, but we had fun. The visibility is still at least twenty-five feet. Photos at New dive site
  8. MaxBottomtime

    Wide angle day

    Merry Passage and I returned to Hawthorne Reef this morning, armed with wide angle lenses. We wanted to document the return of rockfish to the area after several years of their absence. The rest of the reef is still in decline. The rocks are no longer covered with corynactis anemones. Sponges...
  9. MaxBottomtime

    Visibility is still holding

    Visibility still holding! Merry Passage and I dived Golf Ball Reef this morning and could see the bottom from 28 feet. Visibility on the reef was 25 feet with octopus and lobsters everywhere. At one point, I was startled when I thought Merry was tapping on the back of my leg. She was just out of...
  10. MaxBottomtime

    Visibility is still good around Palos Verdes

    Merry Passage and I had completely different conditions than yesterday. It was hot and sunny, and the swells had picked up a bit. I told Merry we were going to Golf Ball Reef. On the way there, she said she wanted to make another dive on Torrance Reef soon. While she was on the bow performing...
  11. MaxBottomtime

    The Rockfish Files

    Our Divemaster from the Rapid Bay Jetty trip, Wayne Rosenboom of Underwater Sports in Adelaide, South Australia came to dive with us this morning. We took him to two sites we hadn't visited in a long time, Hawthorne Reef and Buchanan's Reef. The upper sixty feet of the water column was dirty...
  12. MaxBottomtime

    From Bad To Worse

    I dived Garden Spot, a reef just east of Marineland yesterday. It was dark and surgy, and visibility was less than three feet. To help me forget that dive, I made a dock dive today with even worse visibility. I could barely make out the submerged dock floats a foot in front of me.
  13. MaxBottomtime

    Boring dive at Golf Ball Reef

    The surface was choppy, visibility was...meh, and nudibranchs and octopus were nowhere in sight at Golf Ball Reef this morning.
  14. MaxBottomtime

    Wasted days and wasted dives

    Merry and I dived the Star of Scotland wreck yesterday morning. The surface was flat as a lake, the overcast sky was perfect for drysuit diving, and the surface water was bluer than we'd seen in a long time. Those conditions didn't last long. Visibility on the wreck was a dark six feet. There...
  15. MaxBottomtime

    Another dock dive

    The ocean continues to be a bit rough, so I made another dock dive. Visibility was near zero in the top ten feet. I was about to abort the dive when it cleared to nearly a body length on the silty bottom. I stuck it out for nearly two hours and managed to come away with a few decent shots.
  16. MaxBottomtime

    Brownie's Southport Divers loses divers

    Brownie's Southport Divers made the Boating News of the Week.
  17. MaxBottomtime

    Gloomy dive at Haggerty's

    After a few recent dives in good conditions, we were brought back down to Earth today. Light wind, surface current, and incoming tide sweeping up the bottom gave us a relatively boring dive at the crane with twelve feet of visibility. My 15mm lens makes it appear way better than it was.
  18. MaxBottomtime

    Avalon and landing craft wrecks

    Merry wanted to get more wide angle shots of the Avalon wreck, and after finding three sheepcrabs on the landing craft last weekend, I wanted to try getting closeups of them with a fisheye lens. We picked a good day for it. The surface water over the Avalon was its usual green, but at thirty...
  19. MaxBottomtime

    Landing Craft

    I wanted to dive Christmas Tree Reef this morning but a sewage spill canceled that idea. Merry suggested we try the Landing Craft. It had been a long time since we dived there. We didn't find much last time, so I wasn't looking forward to the dive. We didn't see many fish and no octopus, but we...
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