Catalina Island best time of the year

[drbill]

Call me crazy but Catalina diving and SoCal Channel Islands diving for me is best during February and March when it's in deep winter and seguing to early spring. Temperature is nice and cold. Sea condition is nice and flat. Everything is green and lush.

Except that is often the peak time for the Sargassum and visibility begins to deteriorate when it does. Winter used to be the best time for visibility due to shorter daylength and less plankton, but the arrival of the Sargassum altered that a bit.

---------- Post added November 11th, 2014 at 08:27 AM ----------

The wacky Sargassum is 2 to 3 feet tall, glowing gold in the autumnal sun, swaying in the surge... And mesmerizing.

While the Sargassum has a beauty of its own... all I can think of when I see monocultures of it growing here is the terrible ecological impact it has and the drastically reduced biodiversity it brings. Looked at from just an aesthetic perspective it does have a certainly beauty, but I'm not a "skin deep" kind of person (and neither are you Claudette!).

 

[fnfalman]

The china grass is OK except that when it's so thick that not even fish can swim through it. Nasty.

 

[drbill]

Not OK with me... it is an ecological disaster. With the giant kelp largely gone this fall, I predict a year in which the Sargassum will not only be incredibly thick (it is right now in most spots) but potentially forming "forests" of its own. I've seen it get as tall as 20 ft. When that happens it is a real problem for diving. Then when it begins to deteriorate at the end of its annual life cycle, the organic matter clouds up the water and significantly diminishes visibility.

With help from Pete Vanags I recently cleared several spots in the dive park of Sargassum. Once it was removed, the rocks were nearly bare with almost no native algal species growing on them due to the competitive advantage of the Sargassum in terms of substrate and light. The impact on our biodiversity is readily evident when you look at the cleared patches of rock.

 

[socaljohn]

With help from Pete Vanags I recently cleared several spots in the dive park of Sargassum. Once it was removed, the rocks were nearly bare with almost no native algal species growing on them due to the competitive advantage of the Sargassum in terms of substrate and light. The impact on our biodiversity is readily evident when you look at the cleared patches of rock.

Are there restictions on removing it, and what do you do with it? I bet lots of divers would help out if they knew what to do.

 

[drbill]

Yes, CDF&W requires a fishing license to removed any marine alga (native or not) and limits you to 10 lbs wet weight per person per day. In a marine protected area you are required to get a special permit from CDF&W to remove even a non-native invasive like the Sargassum horneri (absolutely ridiculous IMHO given the damage it is doing to the native species in MPAs). They required me to self-fund a three year program with regular monitoring to do their job.