fnfalman
Contributor
We went out on the Great Escape to Farnsworth and backside of Catalina. The ocean wasn't quite as flat as a pancake, but close enough with maybe 1-ft swell at most. No current, not even surge. Visibility was a ridiculous 100-ft plus either horizontal or vertical. Did I mention that the water was warm too? I didn't even bother looking at the temp readout because I was comfortable in my 5-years-old one piece 7mm.
Most of the dives were done at the 90-ft depth range and later on we went up to 70-ft to do some more photography before ascending. Hopefully Rex would be posting soon with the photos he took at Farnsworth and backside of Catalina. It was a dawn dive with the sun barely above the horizon, and that's why I said it was a near perfect dive instead of a perfect dive. If we were diving an hour later, with the sun well up, I can only imagine what sunlight would do to the purple hydrocoral's colors.
We managed to see two California scorpion fish, several different nudies (Hilton's Aeolid, San Diego Dorid, and a couple of white ones that hopefully Rex's photos would have better details). One lone sea lion came by but didn't stick around. I saw one person was struggling and had to be aided by a DM (not the boat's DM but the shop's DM). They were ascending on the anchor line with the struggling diver sucking on the DM's octo.
Second dive was at Iron Cove (?). It was ho-hum. Saw a small bat ray swimming around and that was about it. Good viz, warm, fun dive but no joy with topography. Flat bottomed with gravel so no silks but otherwise we didn't see squat. No flatfish, no sharks, no mantis shrimps, nothing exciting at all. It was a good navigation exercise and that's about it.
Third dive was at Finger Rock and that was a nice one. We swam around the rock, checking out its gorgeous topography. Rex found a few items that interested him but over all, we spent most of our gas swimming to the rock, around it and back. I would have loved to been able to explore this rock some more. Saw one lonely Spanish Shawl there and some lobsters caught in a lobster trap. I would love to come back and explore this rock at depth just because of the crevices and overhangs.
Fourth dive was at a site that I didn't recall the name of. Typical beautiful kelp forest dive: lots of new kelps that haven't quite reached the surface yet but fairly thick underwater. Lots of baitfish, schooling blacksmiths, senoritas and a ton of Garibaldis. Some were aggressive enough to bump my orange gloved hands and the orange on my hood. Abalones, abalones, abalones. Big ones, small ones, and then more big ones. I found a glass bottle that wasn't down long enough to be a home for somebody, so I picked it up and took it with me. Of course, we had to have somebody playing rotor tiller and mucked up our dive area reducing the great viz down to crap within half a second.
Sun was out, grub was good, the mermaids were pretty.
Most of the dives were done at the 90-ft depth range and later on we went up to 70-ft to do some more photography before ascending. Hopefully Rex would be posting soon with the photos he took at Farnsworth and backside of Catalina. It was a dawn dive with the sun barely above the horizon, and that's why I said it was a near perfect dive instead of a perfect dive. If we were diving an hour later, with the sun well up, I can only imagine what sunlight would do to the purple hydrocoral's colors.
We managed to see two California scorpion fish, several different nudies (Hilton's Aeolid, San Diego Dorid, and a couple of white ones that hopefully Rex's photos would have better details). One lone sea lion came by but didn't stick around. I saw one person was struggling and had to be aided by a DM (not the boat's DM but the shop's DM). They were ascending on the anchor line with the struggling diver sucking on the DM's octo.
Second dive was at Iron Cove (?). It was ho-hum. Saw a small bat ray swimming around and that was about it. Good viz, warm, fun dive but no joy with topography. Flat bottomed with gravel so no silks but otherwise we didn't see squat. No flatfish, no sharks, no mantis shrimps, nothing exciting at all. It was a good navigation exercise and that's about it.
Third dive was at Finger Rock and that was a nice one. We swam around the rock, checking out its gorgeous topography. Rex found a few items that interested him but over all, we spent most of our gas swimming to the rock, around it and back. I would have loved to been able to explore this rock some more. Saw one lonely Spanish Shawl there and some lobsters caught in a lobster trap. I would love to come back and explore this rock at depth just because of the crevices and overhangs.
Fourth dive was at a site that I didn't recall the name of. Typical beautiful kelp forest dive: lots of new kelps that haven't quite reached the surface yet but fairly thick underwater. Lots of baitfish, schooling blacksmiths, senoritas and a ton of Garibaldis. Some were aggressive enough to bump my orange gloved hands and the orange on my hood. Abalones, abalones, abalones. Big ones, small ones, and then more big ones. I found a glass bottle that wasn't down long enough to be a home for somebody, so I picked it up and took it with me. Of course, we had to have somebody playing rotor tiller and mucked up our dive area reducing the great viz down to crap within half a second.
Sun was out, grub was good, the mermaids were pretty.