Nice report Paul! Made me feel like I was right there with you for some great fun!PnL:
Christian
May 05 Dive Reports
- Thread starter pasley
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Christian
Diver_Jan
Contributor
Wednesday 5/18/05 Night Dive
Triggerfish in 'Woods Cove' South Laguna
Surf: 1-2 easy entry; exit...took some timing due to increased surf, but was able to exit without incident.
Swell: min to moderate
Surge: Do you like to fly??? Heavy in shallows; minimal to moderate at depth.
Viz: 10-15' in shallows; 5-8' at depth
Temp: Here is where it gets GOOD: 63 degrees SUUNTO!!!
Dive time: 61 minutes
Dive Buddies: David and Jennifer
Entered the cove on the West side due to heavy surf on the East side. Kicked out a bit then dropped down into what I considered pretty good viz, even with monderate to heavy surge. Decided to try to find the plane wreckage, but no luck. Lost each other briefly, met at the surface, and dropped back down to continue our dive. Jennifer spotted a 'Two Spotted Octopus' right away. He was out from the rocks so we were able to get a really good look at him. Got to observe him climbing over the rocks and swimming. I noticed that he was 'handicapped' in that a couple of his limbs appeared to have been amputated. It's amazing how creatures can adjust to such devastation. We continued out dive and spotted a couple of small Morays, lots of bugs, a Spanish Shawl, Blacksmith, Giribaldi's, ect.
On our way back in, Jennifer spotted a very unusual fish hiding in the rocks. I got a good look at it, and it reminded me of some of the more tropical fish that I had dove with in Kona and Cozumel. Anxious to get home to ID it, I came up with that it was a Finescale Triggerfish. If you have the Coastal Fish Identification book, it's on page #159. VERY COOL!!! I love to see new marine life that I haven't seen before in our waters.
All in all, a great dive, a beautiful night, and wonderful company!
Triggerfish in 'Woods Cove' South Laguna
Surf: 1-2 easy entry; exit...took some timing due to increased surf, but was able to exit without incident.
Swell: min to moderate
Surge: Do you like to fly??? Heavy in shallows; minimal to moderate at depth.
Viz: 10-15' in shallows; 5-8' at depth
Temp: Here is where it gets GOOD: 63 degrees SUUNTO!!!
Dive time: 61 minutes
Dive Buddies: David and Jennifer
Entered the cove on the West side due to heavy surf on the East side. Kicked out a bit then dropped down into what I considered pretty good viz, even with monderate to heavy surge. Decided to try to find the plane wreckage, but no luck. Lost each other briefly, met at the surface, and dropped back down to continue our dive. Jennifer spotted a 'Two Spotted Octopus' right away. He was out from the rocks so we were able to get a really good look at him. Got to observe him climbing over the rocks and swimming. I noticed that he was 'handicapped' in that a couple of his limbs appeared to have been amputated. It's amazing how creatures can adjust to such devastation. We continued out dive and spotted a couple of small Morays, lots of bugs, a Spanish Shawl, Blacksmith, Giribaldi's, ect.
On our way back in, Jennifer spotted a very unusual fish hiding in the rocks. I got a good look at it, and it reminded me of some of the more tropical fish that I had dove with in Kona and Cozumel. Anxious to get home to ID it, I came up with that it was a Finescale Triggerfish. If you have the Coastal Fish Identification book, it's on page #159. VERY COOL!!! I love to see new marine life that I haven't seen before in our waters.
All in all, a great dive, a beautiful night, and wonderful company!
scottfiji
Contributor
Redondo Night Dive, 9:25PM
Max depth: 87ft
Bottom time: 66 minutes
Vis: 20-30ft at depth
Waves: large wind waves, fast sets, but some lulls... not much power though
Cesar, Bernard, and I looked down at large waves coming in as fast sets. As we walked down to the water, the waves started to look smaller, and we realized it was mostly from the strong wind. Claudette arrived, and me and claudette quickly conviced the other 2 it was time to dive!!
It was my first dive with a steel PST-100, I like it! And I had a good fill, Lots of air...thanks Cesar!! We all entered together, and claudette and I split off the cesar and bernard....the thermocline moved down to 45ft...I thought the vis in the shallows was improving, 5-7 feet
Underwater we saw large thornback rays, scorpionfish, red octopus, sanddabs, sea lions, a large bat ray, hermissendra, dendrinotus and spanish shawl nudibranchs, pipefish, pink perch, several rockfish, a couple plainfin midshipman, sculpins, many hemphill's kelp crabs, spotted cusk eel, catalina conger eel, mole crabs, swimming crabs, brown rock crabs, a dozen target shrimp, many tonguefish.
a LOT of interesting stuff happened underwater! I'll let claudette give the details.
Exit was easy, and we both had a long dive and a long safety stop with air to spare... Claudette, thanks a lot for help with my tanks, and for lighting the photos!
lots of cool pictures that have to be seen in full size! (Especially the buried midshipman and the first kelp crab pic)
http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/redondo20050518
Scott
Max depth: 87ft
Bottom time: 66 minutes
Vis: 20-30ft at depth
Waves: large wind waves, fast sets, but some lulls... not much power though
Cesar, Bernard, and I looked down at large waves coming in as fast sets. As we walked down to the water, the waves started to look smaller, and we realized it was mostly from the strong wind. Claudette arrived, and me and claudette quickly conviced the other 2 it was time to dive!!
It was my first dive with a steel PST-100, I like it! And I had a good fill, Lots of air...thanks Cesar!! We all entered together, and claudette and I split off the cesar and bernard....the thermocline moved down to 45ft...I thought the vis in the shallows was improving, 5-7 feet
Underwater we saw large thornback rays, scorpionfish, red octopus, sanddabs, sea lions, a large bat ray, hermissendra, dendrinotus and spanish shawl nudibranchs, pipefish, pink perch, several rockfish, a couple plainfin midshipman, sculpins, many hemphill's kelp crabs, spotted cusk eel, catalina conger eel, mole crabs, swimming crabs, brown rock crabs, a dozen target shrimp, many tonguefish.
a LOT of interesting stuff happened underwater! I'll let claudette give the details.
Exit was easy, and we both had a long dive and a long safety stop with air to spare... Claudette, thanks a lot for help with my tanks, and for lighting the photos!
lots of cool pictures that have to be seen in full size! (Especially the buried midshipman and the first kelp crab pic)
http://www.scubapost.net/gallery/redondo20050518
Scott
ScubaSeanMaui
Contributor
Check out this article about why they are not feeding "Psycho" the Moray down in the Cayman islands:divinman:
http://caymannetnews.com/2005/05/837/feeding.shtml
I hope you ladies stop feeding the Morays. Please read the article and take heed.
Sean
divebuddysean:
For the record...I do NOT feed the eels. Don't like to change behaviors.
I have several dive buddies that do like to feed them, though. I'll have a talk with them all...
Love & kisses! :10:
HBDiveGirl
Contributor
- Messages
- 1,329
- Reaction score
- 44
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
May 18, 2005
Redondo Canyon night dive
Buddies: Scottfiji, Bernard, Cesar
Max: 87fsw
Run time: 1hour, 6minutes
Entry: 9:20PM
Tide: 2 1/2 hours after high
Temp at depth: 52F (Aeris)
Active residents: Night shift!
Ah, night diving in Spring! Get the wetsuit on just to be warm in the parking lot. Wind whipping the surface to a froth. Terrestrial pedestrians looking at us as if we were nuts.
Because we can't just stop whenever we want to!
Shut up and Dive.
We pause briefly at the waterline, and then go as the biggest set of the evening comes in...count heads outside the break
...and "Let's go diving". Dropped through atmospheric murk right on top of a dozing thornback ray and then slid across the sea pen garden and down into the canyon. Viz gets up to 12 or 15 feet which is plenty for us. (Scott must have been wearing his x-ray vision mask, because I didn't quite see the 20+ viz he did
) Octopus right away, including two of the smallest I've ever seen. Their mantles were the size of small grapes, and arms so small they couldn't manage more than one S-curve each. Down further into the land of pink scorpion fish, tongue fish, roughfin sculpin, whelks, nudibranchs, crabs and pipe fish. Hey! A fish head in a hole! That's no cusk eel 'cause it's a smooth circular burrow and a pointy head. Conger eel? Yup..how cool! Then mud, sand, algae, mud, eyes, mud...hey, those eyes are too small for sole, and they're 2 inches apart! Look again...and again... and finally see the faint line of a barely exposed, down-turned mouth in the mud. Ambush hunter! Perfectly buried and camouflaged. Scott got the perfect photo and then roused the mystery predator: A 10 inch midshipman...the largest I've ever seen in the canyon. I've probably been finning over them for years, clueless as to their deep camo. The photo safari continued, with crabs, fish and nudis lining up for their close-ups. As I watched Scott dart ahead in pursuit of a fish, I felt his fins bump under my legs a couple of times....uhm...he's over there...unless he's 15 feet tall, there's no way his fins could be hitting me...time to look down and back...but there's nothing in sight. uhm...OK... A few minutes later, Scott's gesturing emphatically about something hitting his head repeatedly... sea lion?? Finally, a minute later we come upon a big ol' bat ray that jerks up off the sand and almost hits us...must be our mystery klutz. By now we're bumping up against our NDL, 52F water so cold it's starting to feel hot (isn't my dry suit here yet??), and still showing 1800 psi...big HP tanks been berry-berry good to us! Slow diagonal ascent back along the canyon slope and up come those amazing kelp covered crabs photographed by Scott...wow! Super long legs, rectangular fronds of kelp perfectly arranged like jewelry on a debutante. I've never seen these before and they were hard to spot. Then that weird looking staghorn sculpin, a tiny 8 inch thornback ray, a little moon snail. We're cruising and cruising with our endless air supplies in the warmer shallows, when Scott practically gets mowed down by a BIG lobster marching southwards. In justified self-defence, the grab is made, the suspect examined, and then released on his own recognizance.
It was a really fun night of canyon diving with fun company. Nice to meet Laazur and Cesar....can't wait to do it all again! Thanks, Scott, for an excellent dive and great pictures.
Claudette
Redondo Canyon night dive
Buddies: Scottfiji, Bernard, Cesar
Max: 87fsw
Run time: 1hour, 6minutes
Entry: 9:20PM
Tide: 2 1/2 hours after high
Temp at depth: 52F (Aeris)
Active residents: Night shift!
Ah, night diving in Spring! Get the wetsuit on just to be warm in the parking lot. Wind whipping the surface to a froth. Terrestrial pedestrians looking at us as if we were nuts.
Diveaholics!
Because we can't just stop whenever we want to!
Shut up and Dive.
We pause briefly at the waterline, and then go as the biggest set of the evening comes in...count heads outside the break
It was a really fun night of canyon diving with fun company. Nice to meet Laazur and Cesar....can't wait to do it all again! Thanks, Scott, for an excellent dive and great pictures.
Claudette
HBDiveGirl
Contributor
- Messages
- 1,329
- Reaction score
- 44
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
Terry, do you see these midshipman buried like this in the LJ canyon? Now that I know what to look for, I'm wondering if they are quite common in mud canyon locations. I didn't really notice the dozens of tongue fish until Scott showed me a photo and then I realized that many of what I had thought were juvenile halibut/sole/flounders... were actually tongue fish. One cannot dive into the same canyon twice, indeed!divinman:
Claudette
mainmanpaul
Guest
scottfiji:
Great Shots!
Any idea what the whithe egg things are next to the fish? I see them all the time
scottfiji
Contributor
mainmanpaul:
thanks paul; I've seen snail eggs that look similar to those (but smaller), so it could be that (probably wavy turban snail eggs), but that would be a complete guess on my part. Let me know if you find out for sure!
Scott
Similar threads
