He's Just A Baby

[dwashbur]

We did our first night dive of the season last night at the breakwater. One thing I was hoping to see was one of Monterey's most famous denizens, a monkeyface eel (prickleback). We did find one, but he was unlike any we have seen before. The main reason: he was far enough back in his den that we couldn't tell how long he was, but his head was MAYBE 1-2 inches high. The others we've seen were all huge. This guy was just a little feller, and so cute! I just have to share a couple of the pictures:

There are more pix from our dive at

dwashbur/Breakwater 7-5-08 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

including a new dorid for us, Acanthodoris lutea (the orange one), and a mystery nudibranch that we have been unable to identify so far.

 

[dhammer]

Cool! He looks like he's doing an Elvis impression with his upper lip like that.
I was there for a dusk and post-fireworks night dive on Friday. I found it VERY difficult to take any decent pics while juggling my camera, flashlight, and BC control. Besides the fact that I couldn't see the subjects in the camera screen most of the time. Didn't come away with much that was presentable. Looks like you managed very well, though.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

I found it VERY difficult to take any decent pics while juggling my camera, flashlight, and BC control.

Mount the light to the camera. There are nice Ultralight mounts for the Ikelite Mini-C Light
(which I use), and for two UK 4AA cell lights. These provide light for focusing even
on Monterey day dive.

There are also some very nice and very $$$ focusing lights.

 

[dwashbur]

Above 20 feet, the viz was basically "Uh, what's a viz?" which is to say, crappy. But below that it got better, and down below the thermocline around 30 fsw it opened up to about 10-15 feet. We found him at about 25 fsw.

I've never seen so many rockfish of various and sundry sizes in one place. We were constantly surrounded by them, at least 4 different kinds, and that's not counting the swarms of juveniles. We may also have seen a giant kelpfish, but he tucked himself back into a crease in the rocks and we couldn't get a picture. On the trip back in we moved out onto the sand a bit looking for giant nudibranchs, and one of those tiny rockfish actually swam into my hand and got himself pinned between my thumb and the camera. I opened my hand as much as I could to let him out, but he kept trying to get further and further under the camera instead of coming out and escaping. Would you like to feel something totally weird?????? That was it.

Night diving truly is a different world...

 

[dhammer]

Mount the light to the camera. There are nice Ultralight mounts for the Ikelite Mini-C Light
(which I use), and for two UK 4AA cell lights. These provide light for focusing even
on Monterey day dive.

There are also some very nice and very $$$ focusing lights.

Thanks Chuck. I think what I may end up doing is attaching my small flashlight to my strobe, as a kind of combination focusing/modeling light.

 

[dwashbur]

I actually managed to rig up a way to mount one of our cameras to the top of a UK Light Cannon using nothing but a little flat piece of metal and an allen-head set screw. Unfortunately, we had an incident a couple of weeks ago and that setup - with the light and camera - got lost at Monastery South. We have another light cannon, but I haven't gotten around to making a camera mount for it yet.

 

[fisheater]

I actually managed to rig up a way to mount one of our cameras to the top of a UK Light Cannon using nothing but a little flat piece of metal and an allen-head set screw. Unfortunately, we had an incident a couple of weeks ago and that setup - with the light and camera - got lost at Monastery South. We have another light cannon, but I haven't gotten around to making a camera mount for it yet.

When you do make that rig again, would you mind posting photos and a description? That sounds like something many of us, me included, would be interested in doing.

 

[dwashbur]

When you do make that rig again, would you mind posting photos and a description? That sounds like something many of us, me included, would be interested in doing.

If somebody could find the one we lost at Monastery, we could all sit around and study it I'm hoping to build another one this week and will see about taking some pix.

 

[sarita75]

That's super-cute. Thanks for sharing.