catalina 7/11

[rainbowtrout22]

Hi all,

gsk3 and I dove the Casino Point dive park on 7/11. Good viz (30-40), tons of fish, one bat ray who came up from probably around 70 ft to our 50 and shot right past (attempt to follow it proved hopeless). Otherwise the usual suspects in terms of fish.
Pretty warm water for us (mid 60s to mid 50s)

Slightly cranky dive shop owner (he yelled at five employees in our presence, once at us), but a great guide for our first dive. Also tried out their Jetfins and am now totally obsessed with getting a pair to replace the Dive Rites I sacrificed to Neptune at Nicholas Canyon...

Ended up doing 3 dives, max depth for the day 72ft.


I did have three wildlife questions:

1) The brightly colored orange and purple nudibranches are Spanish Shaws? I wasn't sure.

2) The slate blue, numerous, medium size fish are blacksmiths, yes?

3) We saw a large fish in the kelp at around 50-60 ft, probably about two and a half ft long. Dark greyish color, salmon-shaped jaw, and some lightish spots along the dorsal. I'm pretty familiar with SoCal fish species since I grew up deep sea fishing there, and I have no idea what this guy was. Not calico or kelp bass, certainly not an adult black sea bass, the body shape and jaw looked wrong, plus far too small. Juvenile possibly?


Thanks!

 

[rainbowtrout22]

Ah, and I forgot--we dove with the Playboy Bunnies. Apparently they were filming some TV show called Girl Next Door.

They were so sterotypical that it was truly pathetic...my favorite, a fully adult woman whining about her hood (while making us all wait 10 minutes on the steps behind her)---"But I don't LIKE it...it's tiiiiight" and when the instructor told her it would be better in the water, she whined "Swear? Cross your heart?"

We did get to watch them being videoed underwater, which was sort of cool.

Oh yea, and they all had pastel gear

 

[drbill]

Yep, Spanish shawls.

If the blue fish had small black spots, were in small groups or large schools and looked like garibaldi, they were probably blacksmith. If they were larger, had a black spot on their operculum and were solitary or in small groups, they were probably halfmoon.

All I could think of while I watched them film "The Girls Next Door" segment was that I'd have to card all of them to make sure they were legal... not that I was very interested to begin with.