Ok, so we've been having all sorts of excitement here the past few weeks. Hammerheads taking a gander at passing kayakers hunting for tuna and lifeguards shutting down whole beaches due to that. Maybe they forget we're in Great White territory, and that divers regularly see 7-gills and all sorts of other sharks hanging out all the time too. Regardless, the thing that always makes me roll my eyes is the people who come back with stories about sea horses and sea turtles. Really? Are you guys sitting at home cackling as you post those made-up dive reports getting poor, innocent unsuspecting diver's hearts excited? Come on, stop toying with me...
So seeing one of those sea turtle reports come through the local mailing list last night, I joked about it with my dive buddy this morning, and got kitted up. It's been 90ºF+ on land this past week, so even if viz was washed out, I was determined to jump into the ocean. Unsurprisingly the water was 73ºF, which is a summer high for here, but at least that's still about 20ºF cooler than land.
Visibility was surprisingly clear, albeit with some sand kicked up here and there. Our dive was 1:55 long (I ran down to fumes.. 2hrs was just not to be), max depth 20fsw and average 11fsw. The increased depth to usual is because it was rising/high tide, and we're usually there when it's low, but it was so flat that we decided to go in anyway. Be careful on the stairs at high tide! There was about 4-5 human bodies' worth volume of washed up kelp hiding the washed-out sand pit at the bottom as noted before entry when there was still some sandy beach left. Before you go in, always think about your exit too!
Enough lecturing.. here's what we saw!
The burning sunshine greeting a new day.
After we dropped, schools of fish!
Yellowtail.. they always stay just at the edge of viz.
I finally found my first octopus!! I've never found one myself before.
I guess it didn't want to come out for me.
The usual suspects:
Schools of little fish.
And then some unusual ones:
(opaleye from what I could tell... some others too in the school, that I couldn't make out)
Is that a toothy grin?
yup :shocked2: Eel!
Are vermillion rockfish this small? It totally looks like one.
You know what's great? When the sun can actually get through the water. We had such great viz! Somehow the sight of multiple Garibaldi is frightening though, because they tend to be territorial like hummingbirds. Small but ferocious.
I guess an abalone is essentially a rock, so why wouldn't a lobster hang out on one?
A nice perch
For a little while during the dive, we were under a big kelp raft underneath which there was just tons of shredded algae.
..where the dark spotted ray lives. I think this is the same one we found last time, because it looks similar and was in around the same location.
So buddy was pointing to a rock and I had no idea why... I kept looking and not seeing anything. Rock, chunks of short kelp just growing in (maybe a foot long), nothing else. All of a sudden, a piece of kelp takes off for another stand..
Giant kelpfish!
It swims off again, and I find another kelp patch.. another one!
Eventually we turned because we were at about half-tank a little bit over an hour into the dive. It was a really nice peaceful dive today. This video is if you want to watch a few minutes of algae peacefully swaying in the waters:
I haven't posted them all, but today's dive contained ridiculous amounts of lobster
and sea bass too. They were even attacking buddy's backup reg. It must be tasty or something
lobster's-eye-view of lobster:
Those kelp rafts were because huge stalks just got completely ripped up/off their anchor-points.
but the fish were enjoying it
and I guess kayakers. (or is that a paddle-board? Hard to tell from below)
I was a little disappointed, truth be told, that there were piles of kelp rafts, tons of schools of fish, and no nice hammerhead or anything chasing them around.
The biggest predator we saw was a surprise group of large sea bass hiding in the greenery. There's just something so unsettling about them.
So I decide, ok maybe I'll try to get video from further down in the water column, near the sand, because we're almost back. I'd like to catch a ray's-eye-view if we find some rays like I did for the lobster.
SURPRISE SEA TURTLE! It was shaky there for a bit because I was trying to get buddy to come over.
So, I'm one of those mean monsters telling people I saw a sea turtle here now. Anyway, go dive today! There's reports of at least 2 sea turtles, and it might rain tomorrow so go hit the water now!
So seeing one of those sea turtle reports come through the local mailing list last night, I joked about it with my dive buddy this morning, and got kitted up. It's been 90ºF+ on land this past week, so even if viz was washed out, I was determined to jump into the ocean. Unsurprisingly the water was 73ºF, which is a summer high for here, but at least that's still about 20ºF cooler than land.
Visibility was surprisingly clear, albeit with some sand kicked up here and there. Our dive was 1:55 long (I ran down to fumes.. 2hrs was just not to be), max depth 20fsw and average 11fsw. The increased depth to usual is because it was rising/high tide, and we're usually there when it's low, but it was so flat that we decided to go in anyway. Be careful on the stairs at high tide! There was about 4-5 human bodies' worth volume of washed up kelp hiding the washed-out sand pit at the bottom as noted before entry when there was still some sandy beach left. Before you go in, always think about your exit too!
Enough lecturing.. here's what we saw!
The burning sunshine greeting a new day.
After we dropped, schools of fish!
Yellowtail.. they always stay just at the edge of viz.
I finally found my first octopus!! I've never found one myself before.
I guess it didn't want to come out for me.
The usual suspects:
Schools of little fish.
And then some unusual ones:
(opaleye from what I could tell... some others too in the school, that I couldn't make out)
Is that a toothy grin?
yup :shocked2: Eel!
Are vermillion rockfish this small? It totally looks like one.
You know what's great? When the sun can actually get through the water. We had such great viz! Somehow the sight of multiple Garibaldi is frightening though, because they tend to be territorial like hummingbirds. Small but ferocious.
I guess an abalone is essentially a rock, so why wouldn't a lobster hang out on one?
A nice perch
For a little while during the dive, we were under a big kelp raft underneath which there was just tons of shredded algae.
..where the dark spotted ray lives. I think this is the same one we found last time, because it looks similar and was in around the same location.
So buddy was pointing to a rock and I had no idea why... I kept looking and not seeing anything. Rock, chunks of short kelp just growing in (maybe a foot long), nothing else. All of a sudden, a piece of kelp takes off for another stand..
Giant kelpfish!
It swims off again, and I find another kelp patch.. another one!
Eventually we turned because we were at about half-tank a little bit over an hour into the dive. It was a really nice peaceful dive today. This video is if you want to watch a few minutes of algae peacefully swaying in the waters:
I haven't posted them all, but today's dive contained ridiculous amounts of lobster
and sea bass too. They were even attacking buddy's backup reg. It must be tasty or something
lobster's-eye-view of lobster:
Those kelp rafts were because huge stalks just got completely ripped up/off their anchor-points.
but the fish were enjoying it
and I guess kayakers. (or is that a paddle-board? Hard to tell from below)
I was a little disappointed, truth be told, that there were piles of kelp rafts, tons of schools of fish, and no nice hammerhead or anything chasing them around.
The biggest predator we saw was a surprise group of large sea bass hiding in the greenery. There's just something so unsettling about them.
So I decide, ok maybe I'll try to get video from further down in the water column, near the sand, because we're almost back. I'd like to catch a ray's-eye-view if we find some rays like I did for the lobster.
SURPRISE SEA TURTLE! It was shaky there for a bit because I was trying to get buddy to come over.
So, I'm one of those mean monsters telling people I saw a sea turtle here now.
Anyway, go dive today! There's reports of at least 2 sea turtles, and it might rain tomorrow so go hit the water now!
