fnfalman
Contributor
I went out with two friends on the Sundiver Express. There were supposed to be nine divers total but two cancelled at the last moment and Captain Ray was gracious enough to not cancel the trip because of too light of a load.
The three dive spots were: Africa, Little Geiger and Lion's Head
Calm day throughout but there were some wind here and there and current wasn't heavy but constant. Constant as in constant current but definitely some direction changes in the middle of the dive. Lowest temp was 58-F and highest temp was 62-F at depth!! Pretty sweet. There were a lot of warm water coming in because you see the shimmering thermocline everywhere. I like doing the thing where I stick my head into the thermocline and feel the warmth then pull it back to feel the cold.
Great viz too at all three sites. 60-ft plus horizontal.
Lots of sheep crabs. Sheep crabs, sheep crabs, everywhere sheep crabs. I've never seen such a dense concentration of them. Lots of bat rays out and about too. Of course the big lobsters taunting us because they know that they're safe.
Africa was a nice spot. We saw tons of sheep crabs and a couple of C-O turbots, a bunch of cleaner shrimps but no eels.
However, THE dive of the day was the second dive at Little Geiger. We dropped down through the thick kelps and started swimming towards the wall at 70-80ft depth. First thing we saw was a big ass bat ray gracefully flew by us. We went inside the kelp forest and marveled at the concentration of sheep crabs. Again. Then we hit the wall at around 40-ft and followed it down to about 80-ft. At this point we hit pretty good current that brought in some particulates and viz dropped to about 20-ft. While my buddies scoured the wall for cool stuff, I was eyeballing the open water hoping to see black seabasses. One of my friends spotted two Clown nudies and as soon as I checked it out, I saw at the corner of my field of view a black shadow. There it was, the first sight of black seabass for the year 2013. I frantically flashed the light at my buddies and pointed to them. We three powered after the giant fish but trying to obliquely approach it instead of chasing it. It slowed down a bit, eyeballed us then darted away.
We shrugged and turned back to the wall and as we did, boom!!! Another one appeared out of nowhere not even 10-ft away. This one was eyeballing us too and slowed down to check us out. We slowed down and paralleled it a bit. We were at around 75-ft depth at this point and I happened to look up and a pair were above us maybe 20-ft shallower. At this point viz cleared up nicely and this pair was HUGE. The one that paralleled us was about 5-ft, but the other two dwarfed it. The two on top circled then swam off but the smaller one just finned against the current and eyeballed us. We ever slowly floated towards it and it swam away when we got to about touching distance.
We went back to the wall again and played there until 50-minutes into the dive and I signaled everybody to start returning to the boat. Captain Ray asked us to keep it to no more than an hour per dive. This is when we found out the the current changed direction and the boat is no longer by the kelp forest but out in blue water. No biggie, we got plenty of air and I surfaced to shoot an azimuth then went back down to swim back.
Along the way, we encountered another black seabass. This one purposely slowed down as we approached it. We both paralleled each other for quite a distance until we got close to the boat and surfaced. As we made the ascension to the boat, we saw a massive bat ray laying on the sand. That was THE dive of the day.
The third dive at Lion's Head wasn't quite as spectacular but still fun. Lush kelp forest with plenty of sheep crabs and on the way back to the boat, we saw about a dozen bat rays of big and small flopping about. There was also a large halibut sitting right underneath the boat too.
There was a diver who gave me a scare at the third dive. As we were approaching the boat, I saw the guy thrashing all over the place. He'd stand on the sand then jumped up, waving his extremities all around, then sank down and stood on the sand again. Then he went horizontal and thrashing all about. So I approached him to see what's going on and saw his first stage was venting bubbles. Not like the tiny bubble stream of those first stages that were designed that way, but it was venting good bubbles. Not quite an O-ring blowout but it vented pretty good. I tried to signal him but I don't think he understood. I looked at his gauge and he still had 1000-psi left and the boat was right above him with depth only of about 25-ft. I signaled him if he was OK and he gave me the OK signal back so I went back to my group and surfaced.
I've been known to do some underwater acrobatics around sea lion pups, but just thrashing about for the heck of it, especially standing on the sand and kicking everything up...that was strange.
The three dive spots were: Africa, Little Geiger and Lion's Head
Calm day throughout but there were some wind here and there and current wasn't heavy but constant. Constant as in constant current but definitely some direction changes in the middle of the dive. Lowest temp was 58-F and highest temp was 62-F at depth!! Pretty sweet. There were a lot of warm water coming in because you see the shimmering thermocline everywhere. I like doing the thing where I stick my head into the thermocline and feel the warmth then pull it back to feel the cold.
Great viz too at all three sites. 60-ft plus horizontal.
Lots of sheep crabs. Sheep crabs, sheep crabs, everywhere sheep crabs. I've never seen such a dense concentration of them. Lots of bat rays out and about too. Of course the big lobsters taunting us because they know that they're safe.
Africa was a nice spot. We saw tons of sheep crabs and a couple of C-O turbots, a bunch of cleaner shrimps but no eels.
However, THE dive of the day was the second dive at Little Geiger. We dropped down through the thick kelps and started swimming towards the wall at 70-80ft depth. First thing we saw was a big ass bat ray gracefully flew by us. We went inside the kelp forest and marveled at the concentration of sheep crabs. Again. Then we hit the wall at around 40-ft and followed it down to about 80-ft. At this point we hit pretty good current that brought in some particulates and viz dropped to about 20-ft. While my buddies scoured the wall for cool stuff, I was eyeballing the open water hoping to see black seabasses. One of my friends spotted two Clown nudies and as soon as I checked it out, I saw at the corner of my field of view a black shadow. There it was, the first sight of black seabass for the year 2013. I frantically flashed the light at my buddies and pointed to them. We three powered after the giant fish but trying to obliquely approach it instead of chasing it. It slowed down a bit, eyeballed us then darted away.
We shrugged and turned back to the wall and as we did, boom!!! Another one appeared out of nowhere not even 10-ft away. This one was eyeballing us too and slowed down to check us out. We slowed down and paralleled it a bit. We were at around 75-ft depth at this point and I happened to look up and a pair were above us maybe 20-ft shallower. At this point viz cleared up nicely and this pair was HUGE. The one that paralleled us was about 5-ft, but the other two dwarfed it. The two on top circled then swam off but the smaller one just finned against the current and eyeballed us. We ever slowly floated towards it and it swam away when we got to about touching distance.
We went back to the wall again and played there until 50-minutes into the dive and I signaled everybody to start returning to the boat. Captain Ray asked us to keep it to no more than an hour per dive. This is when we found out the the current changed direction and the boat is no longer by the kelp forest but out in blue water. No biggie, we got plenty of air and I surfaced to shoot an azimuth then went back down to swim back.
Along the way, we encountered another black seabass. This one purposely slowed down as we approached it. We both paralleled each other for quite a distance until we got close to the boat and surfaced. As we made the ascension to the boat, we saw a massive bat ray laying on the sand. That was THE dive of the day.
The third dive at Lion's Head wasn't quite as spectacular but still fun. Lush kelp forest with plenty of sheep crabs and on the way back to the boat, we saw about a dozen bat rays of big and small flopping about. There was also a large halibut sitting right underneath the boat too.
There was a diver who gave me a scare at the third dive. As we were approaching the boat, I saw the guy thrashing all over the place. He'd stand on the sand then jumped up, waving his extremities all around, then sank down and stood on the sand again. Then he went horizontal and thrashing all about. So I approached him to see what's going on and saw his first stage was venting bubbles. Not like the tiny bubble stream of those first stages that were designed that way, but it was venting good bubbles. Not quite an O-ring blowout but it vented pretty good. I tried to signal him but I don't think he understood. I looked at his gauge and he still had 1000-psi left and the boat was right above him with depth only of about 25-ft. I signaled him if he was OK and he gave me the OK signal back so I went back to my group and surfaced.
I've been known to do some underwater acrobatics around sea lion pups, but just thrashing about for the heck of it, especially standing on the sand and kicking everything up...that was strange.
![Big2.jpg](http://[URL="http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/184164/title/big2/cat/500"][IMG]http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/data/500/Big2.jpg)
