Not buying the introvert thing, eh? Okay, well I guess I'll just have to file a dive report.
It was another good day of beach diving in Hollywood. There was a slight chop (~2' max at the sandbars), but in general, conditions were pretty good. Waterbabie, CincyDiver and AlgalBloom and I met at the Johnson St. parking lot and went out from there on a Northeast course. (Yes, now I know that we should have gone SOUTHEAST, but our group had a collective TIA and had a good swim nonetheless.)
We saw some nice little patch reefs and some low-relief ledges (~3'high) as we proceeded out from the beach. There was a bit of current to the northwest, but we didn't notice it too much on the bottom. After a little while (50 minutes or so), Waterbabie and CincyDiver turned back, and AlgalBloom and I tried to surface swim Southeast, having realized that we'd missed the road. By this time, we were north of the bandstand, roughly east of the racquet ball courts.
We didn't make very good headway against the surface current, so we went to the bottom, set a course for S/SE, and came to the road maybe 10 minutes later. I surfaced, and noted that we were lined up with the south end of the Johnson St. parking garage (the peach one). Another good mark is the line of telephone poles lining Michigan St. You can line up on the one with the sewer blowoff valve on top - it looks like a birdhouse or a siren.
Anyway, the life near the road was great, as usual, lots of smaller reef fish - grunts, surgeons and doctors, blue tangs, a couple of yellow stingrays. During the first part of the dive, we saw two goldentail morays, the second of which CincyDiver saw freeswiming. He just sat on the bottom in the growth while we oogled him for a while, then swam away.
I also saw something that I think I've read about but can't remember its significance: Two bluestriped grunts were hovering face-to-face, opening their mouths, as if they were yawning to each other. I couldn't tell if they were transfering eggs or anything, but it was interesting behavior.
Anyway, it was a great dive, with good buddies and good conditions. Viz could have been better in the beginning (only ~15'), but it improved to around 25' at the road.
And believe it or not, we kept our promise to limit our SI activities and all got away pretty close to our target times.
Can't wait to do it again, especially now that I really know the marks for the site!
The only thing missing was the rest of the group, and I hope everybody had a great time in Venice. I'll be sure to join you next time.
-Grier
