GSB at Catalina in September?

[davidbaraff]

I've had the best luck seeing the GSB at Catalina when going out on a boat like the King Neptune, at sites like Blue Car Wreck (and some others I don't remember the name of). I will be back in September. I've only occasionally seen them in the park, and not great sightings then --- much more activity off the boats. Some questions:

1. Does the recent trend downward of GSB sightings in the park itself signify the season might already be winding down for GSB?
2. Typically, when do the GSB go away? i.e. what would you say is "the GSB season" at Catalina?
3. Turns out the weekend of 9/27 may be best for my trip, but would going two weeks earlier (9/13) be likely to make much of a difference in the odds of seeing them?

 

[drbill]

Used to be a lot more sightings of them in the dive park... I had seven on one dive with my nieces and nephew years back. Several of the other sites that used to be teeming with GSBs in the past have declined and I think it is due in large part to too many divers interacting with them. There used to be several regularly in Lover's Cove, but they have moved to the south and the ones at Italian Gardens seem to have moved further north.

I think to some extent the "season" for GSBs may be temperature dependent. I usually don't see many after October.

I worked with a crew from Japan Underwater Films to create a one hour documentary on them for Japan's public TV station (NHK) two years ago. We had many sightings elsewhere around the island including one site where at least three different age classes were grouped together. We were fiming in September.

Recently I dove with a group of scientists from Cal State Northridge and we saw 34 GSBs in one day... 24 alone at the one site I wasn't at on the back side of the island, 6 at another and 4 at the third. I've only seen one in the dive park this season, but I mostly do night dives there during spring thru fall.