Marine Room - Leopard sharks are out again.

[thez_yo]

Well, it's summer time in San Diego which means sandy, blown out viz, but I've been hopping in regularly to go for a snorkle (these pics are from last Sunday) and we found a couple good spots with leopard shark activity around the grassy stuff south of the Restaurant. Life spotted includes 3+ good sized shovelnose guitarfish, round and bat rays and some sort of more triangular shaped ray, sea turtle, bait balls with pelicans and cormorants grabbing a snack, free-roaming lobster, a nice big green giant kelpfish, and numerous other fish. Here's some nice sandy shots

Here's a summary of the viz-

Anyway, here's the critters-

shovelnose in here... you can mostly just see the tail-

bat ray-

 

[thez_yo]

here's that nice baitball that was floating around and the kelpfish too

With this kinda viz, the spots disappear pretty quick

as usual, they're pretty shallow

and don't like people

This one's a bit rotund... pregnant maybe?

about as deep as they got

pelicans waiting for a snack...

here's that triangle shaped ray

The tail end of a shovelnose again

and here's a head end

So... it was a good snorkle. Viz could be better, but there's lots of life out there so go hop in anyway.

 

[Skeptic14]

That's very cool seeing all the leopard sharks, thanks for sharing!

 

[Chavodel8en]

Nice pics & videos, despite the viz.

A curious question. You seem pretty nonchalant over the sea turtle. Aren't sea turtle sightings in California extremely rare? Like most divers go their entire lifetimes without seeing one? Have you seen them in San Diego before? Is it, if not common, at least not so rare?

Asking bc I love sea turtles, seen plenty in Hawaii, Fla & the Caribbean, but would love to see them in CA and maybe San Diego is the best place to see them. If I saw one in CA, I would probably post "RARE SIGHTING OF A SEA TURTLE in CALI!!!!"

Thanks

 

[thez_yo]

They've been hanging out for the past year our waters have been so warm. I think we may have actually had 2 different kinds too. Supposedly there were seahorses too, but at about 45fsw which I didnt go that deep.

 

[Chavodel8en]

Thanks for letting me know. I may need to get down there.