Jellies, Sea Lions and a Cannibal Nudi: Redondo Beach Barge Dive Report 5.7.11

[FrankPro1]

This morning Charlie and I were invited to dive the Redondo Barge with Phil and Merry aboard their boat the No Pressure. With Phil's past dive reports of Sea Lions, Giant Jellies and cool invert life on the site, I knew we were in for a treat. The Barge is located a quick 4 minute ride outside of King Harbor and lies in 80ft of water. Phil explained to us that she was a military surplus barge and was scuttled "in the 70's?" as an artificial reef. The top 25ft down the anchor line was crystal clear but by the time we settled on the top of the wreck the vis had dropped a few feet and the amount of suspended particulate matter had grown substantially. On our way down we were buzzed by groups of sea lions and before we reached the bottom I could already see the huge group of Fried Egg Jellies which have inhabited the reef as of late. As with every site Phil and Merry take us too, I felt overwhelmed with the sight of so many new critters to see, so the beginning of the dive's photos came out pretty mediocre. Here are a few I was able to capture before we reached our NDL's:

As I dropped below the barge to check out its many "possible" swim-throughs, this little guy came out to scope the bubble blowing giant:

The one Jelly which wasn't completely full of backscatter:

As I watched this Hermi pair travel across the wreck I began to anthropomorphize the encounter as a mother taking out its baby for a Saturday morning stroll. Little did I know she was a cannibal! :

A small section of invert covered wreck "Need to get a wide angle lens!":

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Poor little Hermie.
I weas bummed at the chunks in the water. I took a shot of the two sea lions over you and Charlie and got little more than backscatter. Reports from Marineland were 6-8 feet vis today, so maybe we should consider ourselves lucky.
Merry just posted her pictures.
http://diver.net/bbs/posts002/83953.shtml

 

[FrankPro1]

Chunks or no chunks it was an awesome dive.

I thought as much @ Marineland. The morning drive along the PV coast showed the south side pumping hard.

 

[fnfalman]

Damn, I didn't know that nudies are cannibals.

 

[Merry]

Beautiful little sculpin, and the Hermi attack is super, Frank. A few weeks ago, Chris Grossman mentioned that Hermissenda preys on other nudis. There was so much stuff going on down there, that we would have needed to make another dive to assimilate it all!

 

[FrankPro1]

There was so much stuff going on down there, that we would have needed to make another dive to assimilate it all!

Completely agree It may have at one time been a boring site to dive, but not anymore. Whatever brought those invert species in to the barge I hope it continues.

While I did drift off the edges of the barge a few times I spent little time exploring the sides. I'm sure there was tons of unique critters to be found there.