fnfalman
Contributor
The ride out on the Peace wasn't too bad. Started out rough (felt the boat slammed into the water a few times), but mellowed out nicely.
The dive sites were Crook Point (outside), Wykoff (sp?), Point Bennett and Crook Point (inside). Air temp was cool and sky was overcast all the way until maybe 3 PM and then the sun came out with a vengeance. For a while there, I thought that it was February and not July. Water temp was a chilly 52-53F. Viz ranged between 20-ft and 10-ft. Lots and lots of krills plus a great deal of particulates. However, the reefs were healthy and many anemonies were massive. I saw some humongous Hopkin's Roses and some dinner plate size red abalones.
First site; Crook Point, was OK. Nice viz at 20+ but nothing special. Didn't see any exotic animals but some guys scored some big vermillions and lingcods.
I think that it was at Wykoff (I got confused between the second and third dive sites as to which is Wykoff and which is Point Bennett), we dropped down a beautiful wall with cracks and fissures. The wall extended down close to 90-ft and the sand would hit 100+. More people brought up big vermillions and lingcods. One of the lingcods was close to 3-ft long. Many nudies: horned aerolids (everywhere), various sea lemons (noble and monterrey) also very prolific. I saw some nudies that I haven't seen before: limacia cockerelli, phyllidiopsis blanca, and Aegires albopunctatus.
At the fourth dive site (Crook Point but closer to land and the kelp bed), there were tons of the hooded nudies and I saw five large red abalones plus the usual sea lemons.
One of the hunters descended down and kicked a bunch of the hooded nudies off their perches on the kelps. I swear, there ought to be a law where you can't handle a stinking camera or speargun until you can handle yourself in the water.
---------- Post Merged at 08:15 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 07:59 AM ----------
Oops, forgot about the food report.
For breakfast, Joe served bacon, his famous scrambled eggs but today was cooked in bacon grease, and potato with onion and mushroom.
For soup, he had the cream of tomato and SoCal clam chowder with clam, bacon, corn and some weird garnish.
Lunch was Mexican with flayed chicken and pork al pastor with black bean, rice, the usual condiments and caesar salad.
Salsa were mango, chipotle ranchero and pico de gallo.
He also made some cerviche from a donated male sheephead. I'm not a cerviche fan so I abstained from this dish, but everything else were awesome. As always.
The dive sites were Crook Point (outside), Wykoff (sp?), Point Bennett and Crook Point (inside). Air temp was cool and sky was overcast all the way until maybe 3 PM and then the sun came out with a vengeance. For a while there, I thought that it was February and not July. Water temp was a chilly 52-53F. Viz ranged between 20-ft and 10-ft. Lots and lots of krills plus a great deal of particulates. However, the reefs were healthy and many anemonies were massive. I saw some humongous Hopkin's Roses and some dinner plate size red abalones.
First site; Crook Point, was OK. Nice viz at 20+ but nothing special. Didn't see any exotic animals but some guys scored some big vermillions and lingcods.
I think that it was at Wykoff (I got confused between the second and third dive sites as to which is Wykoff and which is Point Bennett), we dropped down a beautiful wall with cracks and fissures. The wall extended down close to 90-ft and the sand would hit 100+. More people brought up big vermillions and lingcods. One of the lingcods was close to 3-ft long. Many nudies: horned aerolids (everywhere), various sea lemons (noble and monterrey) also very prolific. I saw some nudies that I haven't seen before: limacia cockerelli, phyllidiopsis blanca, and Aegires albopunctatus.
At the fourth dive site (Crook Point but closer to land and the kelp bed), there were tons of the hooded nudies and I saw five large red abalones plus the usual sea lemons.
One of the hunters descended down and kicked a bunch of the hooded nudies off their perches on the kelps. I swear, there ought to be a law where you can't handle a stinking camera or speargun until you can handle yourself in the water.
---------- Post Merged at 08:15 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 07:59 AM ----------
Oops, forgot about the food report.
For breakfast, Joe served bacon, his famous scrambled eggs but today was cooked in bacon grease, and potato with onion and mushroom.
For soup, he had the cream of tomato and SoCal clam chowder with clam, bacon, corn and some weird garnish.
Lunch was Mexican with flayed chicken and pork al pastor with black bean, rice, the usual condiments and caesar salad.
Salsa were mango, chipotle ranchero and pico de gallo.
He also made some cerviche from a donated male sheephead. I'm not a cerviche fan so I abstained from this dish, but everything else were awesome. As always.
. Wycliff was our first site of a 3 day trip and it was one of the best of the trip. We had 53-54f temps and no sun either.
