Catalina 12/22

[mohave_steve]

Well Andy & I didn't find a dive boat. That may have been a blessing in disguise....

We wound up taking the Catalina Express over and diving Casino Point.

Three FANTASTIC dives!! Had a blast! I am soooo envious of you guys who have this in your own back yard. I think if I lived in SoCal I would probably grow gills....

Water temps ran from 52-57 degrees. Water was flat with just a little current to deal with for our first dive. Slight surge and current for 2 & 3.

Vis was at least 40' on our first dive out to the swim platform and 30'plus on the next two. The amount of fish activity around the Skipjack was amazing.

We had Oscar following us aroud for two of our dives. I am not completely certain of my fish ID's and I saw some I couldn't ID. We saw Sheephead, Parrotfish, Blackjack Perch (100's of them), Fire Gobie, Halibut, Garibaldi, Sea Bass, Rockfish, Seniorita, Various Stars and more.....

Dr. Bill, it was great meeting you! I look forward to my next visit to Catallina.

 

[drbill]

Glad you enjoyed diving our park. It really is a great place to experience the diversity of kelp forests.

We went out on the King Neptune today and conditions at the east end of the island (we dove either side of the East End quarry) were not great... maybe 30 ft vis, but lots of resuspended particulates, fairly strong surge and currents even at depth. However there were four very nice folks out on the boat with us which made the day a memorable one! Besides, I don't have much video to edit tonight.

 

[paradicio]

My wife, cousin, and I were at the park this weekend as well. The conditions were great, but the tide was VERY low. I've never seen the water drop below the last step before, even at low tide. This weekend however, not only did it drop below the last step...it exposed quite a few of the rocks below the steps as well! As one diver told me "it's rock climbing scuba diving!"

Other than the low tide, the conditions were very nice. According to my computer the water was 55. The absolute wow factor came from the amount of kelp and macro algae in the park. I've never seen it like that before, it was absolutely stunning. It was like diving a completely different location from where I dove all summer! Dr. Bill, I'm a very new diver so I have no basis of comparison, so I'll ask...is this what happens to the park every winter? It was beautiful!

 

[drbill]

Unfortunately the incredible abundance of macroalgae (other than our own giant kelp) was likely an exotic from Asia known as Sargassum filicinum. It is a fall-through-early summer annual that has begun totally dominating most of the leeward coast sites on Catalina after first appearing in April of 2006. It is one of the most invasive kelps I've ever seen and a significant ecological impact on our native species.

I wrote one of my weekly newspaper columns about this exotic.

 

[mohave_steve]

Paradicio,

Were you by any chance the one who helped me up to the first step? I asked "Is the the Rock Climbing Specialty?"

 

[paradicio]

Paradicio,

Were you by any chance the one who helped me up to the first step? I asked "Is the the Rock Climbing Specialty?"

HA! Yeah, that was me. Nice to have met you mohave_steve!

Thanks for the info Dr. Bill, I will read your article and (I'm sure) come back with lots of questions. Always sad to see an invasive species take over like that. I know in Florida they are having problems with Lion Fish.

 

[mohave_steve]

Thanks for the hand. That was a bit of a rough exit

 

[paradicio]

mojave_steve
No worries, there was just no pretty way of getting in or out of the water that day.

Dr. Bill
Thank you so much for that article, it was very well written and informative. Now I feel a bit bad for my awe at this, as you put it "admittedly beautiful" algae. I will very much be looking forward to your future observations on this. I will also be keeping my eyes open to see if any of our local fish or inverts will munch on this stuff (to hopefully keep it under control) and let you know if I see anything interesting. On a positive note, I did see quite a lot of giant kelp in the park as well. I'm not sure if it's more or less than other winters, but there was certainly a lot more than I saw over the summer.

 

[Choyster]

Hey, Guys --

Sorry for the delay. Here's a link to the rest of the photos from that day. Sure hope this works...

OK, that didn't work so I'm just going to paste the link here:

Picasa Web Albums - Andy - Catalina 12-2...

I'll also post something on the underwater photo thread with the technical details. It was my first dive with the camera and as such, forgot to take any topside photos. Would have been great to have some photos of the rock-climb entry and exit!


Andy

 

[drbill]

...On a positive note, I did see quite a lot of giant kelp in the park as well. I'm not sure if it's more or less than other winters, but there was certainly a lot more than I saw over the summer.

Giant kelp is a cold water alga, preferring temperatures less than 68 degrees F. If it is exposed to more than 2 weeks or so of temperature above that (as is almost always the case for summer near-surface waters), it dies off. As long as the temperature doesn't warm up at holdfast depths, this is not a problem.

However, two years ago we had a 2-3 week spell of temperatures in the 79 degree F range (some had the low 80's) and it was warm all the way down past holdfast depth so the giant kelp completely died off in many areas. Of course it eventually grew back from dormant spores on the bottom when the temperatures cooled back down.