I'm still bumming around town with nothing to do, so I thought to myself, you know, I haven't been to the tide pools in a couple years. I decided to go poke around the walls at Marine Room first before heading over and found the usual critters -
Mmmm tasty sea grass.
ugh mouth full of sand:
...and then when I turned around, I decided... no, I don't actually want to spend the rest of the day at the tide pools. I'd actually like to be *in* the water instead. Poking around holes and crevices topside is fun, but maybe I'll get more of that in once the leopards are gone.
So I decided to go grab my snorkling stuff (dive buddy's still outta town, and leopards spook at the sound of reg exhaust anyway) and head down to the beach to go for another snorkle last night. On my way in, a diver told me there were 7-gills and some angel sharks in the grassy part, so I got pretty excited!
It was pretty calm as I was getting in, I'd say about 4:20pm lake La Jolla, but conditions got choppier as I kept going. I made plans to head down about 4-4:30 and get out at sunset about 6:20. So I headed over to the green part of Marine Room and it was a bit worse over the grass. I've made the mistake of thinking skates and some other cartilaginous critters were actually angel sharks before, so I figured maybe the guy just made the same mistake as me because I did see a nice shovel-nose guitarfish, a couple round rays, and a nice big bat ray. Or maybe he did see angel sharks and they'd left already?
The leopards are definitely still here...
They don't usually go directly underneath me because somehow I'm completely frightening to go underneath (maybe the all-black gear?):
The thing about Leopard Sharks is that they love the surf zone. Not like, "around" the surf zone but quite literally directly where the waves are breaking over your head. And they're quite skittish too, so as I got bounced around by the ocean, my body smashing back into the water would scare them and they'd take off like a cat that got its tail a little too close to a rocking chair. I guess I'm saying this as an apology for the fact that I have grainy (sandy) pics, and that my video is motion-sickness inducing and also very sandy. One to two foot chop with one to two foot occasional surf sets isn't too much fun at the surface in snorkle gear, is why I'm guessing there weren't more people out.
This is very much all taking place in the surf zone:
See how this one just completed turning to swim in front of me?
I don't usually think sharks have a neck that can bend, but this one is going to extreme lengths to avoid going underneath me:
Shovel-nose Guitarfish - also in the surf zone. I tried to take video too, but sand-coloured fish on sand in the surf zone doesn't work too well:
I don't get seasick, but the chop was annoying me so I made my way back over to Leopard Shark party...
Mmmm tasty sea grass.
ugh mouth full of sand:
...and then when I turned around, I decided... no, I don't actually want to spend the rest of the day at the tide pools. I'd actually like to be *in* the water instead. Poking around holes and crevices topside is fun, but maybe I'll get more of that in once the leopards are gone.
So I decided to go grab my snorkling stuff (dive buddy's still outta town, and leopards spook at the sound of reg exhaust anyway) and head down to the beach to go for another snorkle last night. On my way in, a diver told me there were 7-gills and some angel sharks in the grassy part, so I got pretty excited!
It was pretty calm as I was getting in, I'd say about 4:20pm lake La Jolla, but conditions got choppier as I kept going. I made plans to head down about 4-4:30 and get out at sunset about 6:20. So I headed over to the green part of Marine Room and it was a bit worse over the grass. I've made the mistake of thinking skates and some other cartilaginous critters were actually angel sharks before, so I figured maybe the guy just made the same mistake as me because I did see a nice shovel-nose guitarfish, a couple round rays, and a nice big bat ray. Or maybe he did see angel sharks and they'd left already?
The leopards are definitely still here...
They don't usually go directly underneath me because somehow I'm completely frightening to go underneath (maybe the all-black gear?):
The thing about Leopard Sharks is that they love the surf zone. Not like, "around" the surf zone but quite literally directly where the waves are breaking over your head. And they're quite skittish too, so as I got bounced around by the ocean, my body smashing back into the water would scare them and they'd take off like a cat that got its tail a little too close to a rocking chair. I guess I'm saying this as an apology for the fact that I have grainy (sandy) pics, and that my video is motion-sickness inducing and also very sandy. One to two foot chop with one to two foot occasional surf sets isn't too much fun at the surface in snorkle gear, is why I'm guessing there weren't more people out.
This is very much all taking place in the surf zone:
See how this one just completed turning to swim in front of me?
I don't usually think sharks have a neck that can bend, but this one is going to extreme lengths to avoid going underneath me:
Shovel-nose Guitarfish - also in the surf zone. I tried to take video too, but sand-coloured fish on sand in the surf zone doesn't work too well:
I don't get seasick, but the chop was annoying me so I made my way back over to Leopard Shark party...