Great day at the Quarry off Catalina w/ few pics:

[sirthx]

Took the Sea Bass out to Red Crane point Saturday (Rock Quarry). Great vis (50-60ft give or take) and lots of critters as usual. Here's a few snaps from my point n' shoot. (I didn't notice the cleaner shrimp -peppermint?- on the Moray until looking at the photo )

-Mike

 

[drbill]

"Nice" shot of the highly invasive Japanese-Korean alga Sargassum filicinum (#3) as it begins its annual growth cycle back to its fully obnoxious stage. That stuff has been a PITA since it arrived here three years ago, and your dive location was one of the first Catalina sites where it was discovered.

I'm always amused by the range of names given to this site (Empire Landing Quarry) by various divers and dive boats... West End Quarry (it's not even on the real west end), Crane Point, Red Rocks Quarry, etc., etc. Heck, you could dive the same site all day and jusy use a different name each time in your log book.

Did you see the scythe butterflyfish there, or any great whites?

As for your pix, nice. Good to see the treefish got its lipstick on before you took that one.

 

[sirthx]

"Nice" shot of the highly invasive Japanese-Korean alga Sargassum filicinum (#3) as it begins its annual growth cycle back to its fully obnoxious stage. That stuff has been a PITA since it arrived here three years ago, and your dive location was one of the first Catalina sites where it was discovered.

I'm always amused by the range of names given to this site (Empire Landing Quarry) by various divers and dive boats... West End Quarry (it's not even on the real west end), Crane Point, Red Rocks Quarry, etc., etc. Heck, you could dive the same site all day and jusy use a different name each time in your log book.

Did you see the scythe butterflyfish there, or any great whites?

As for your pix, nice. Good to see the treefish got its lipstick on before you took that one.

Hey, Doc. I DID see one of those butterfly fish!! (yellow black & white stripped) Little bugger was too fast for me to get a shot. (yeah, I know) I was trying to get the attention of my buddy who was in front of me, but couldn't. if I wanted to keep sight of it. So I followed the butterfly as it was swimming along the rocks for about 30ft before I had to let him/her go and regroup w/ my buddy. I was surprised to see it swimming like that rather than hovering around the same place. The dive master on our boat knew right where a pair was likely to be so we went in that direction & sure enough......

No Great Whites although I did look for teeth in the sand. No luck. :-( Have there been many sightings there? I know a person who found a tooth there but I was surprised by that as there don't appear to ever be any seals or Sea Lions.

 

[robint]

beautiful pictures!

 

[deeper thoughts]

Beautiful pix and I rather not see Mr White

 

[drbill]

The butterflyfish can be a bit skittish. Usually I find that I have to sit next to their hiding places and let them get used to my presence before I get any decent video footage of them. Even then they flit about a lot.

A great white has been sighted in that area several times. However, the guys I know who have tried to film it say that every time they've tried to approach the shark, it takes off. I've never seen it and wouldn't worry about it.

 

[sirthx]

Thanks for the response, Drbill. I certainly wouldn't worry about it. I'd likely be excited about it although I have no way of knowing exactly how I would react if I spotted one. My guess is if you see one, you're probably going to be OK. Meaning if he/she was interested in having you for lunch it would happen before you realize he/she's around. The one that has been spotted, is it the same shark time after time? Did they get a good idea of size???

 

[t3nchi]

what gear were you using to shoot these pics? nice pics btw

 

[sirthx]

what gear were you using to shoot these pics? nice pics btw

Nothing fancy by any stretch. I want to wait until I have more dives under my belt (so far 18 & counting) before I purchase a housing & strobes for my DSLR. These are all with a Canon point n' shoot (SD900) w/ Canon housing. Thanks!

 

[t3nchi]

That's what I plan to have. SD 870 IS with its housing.

SLR housing is so damned expensive