The Lexy November '05 Dive Report thread

[divinman]

Date: 11/9/05
Dive Location: San Diego/ La Jolla Shores
Bottom Time: 70 minutes
Max Depth:93ft
Avg Depth: 37ft
Vis: solid 20-25 in the canyon
Surface Temp: 62F
Temp at depth: 61F WARM!!!!
Surface Conditions: No surf, no swell, no surge

Images: http://photobucket.com/albums/v109/divinman/LJS110905/

Lake La Jolla Tonight!! Seriously no waves, at all. So calm and clear shallow that I CLEARLY saw the smoothhound shark swim by in calf deep water. No stripes and the smoothhound tail. Whoo Hooo!! The rest of the dive was equally amazing with a good 20-25ft in the canyon and life everywhere. More octopus than you would want to count. Crabs, crabs and more crabs. In one spot there were easily over 100 Graceful crabs, along with hemphils, cryptic and globe. We saw horn sharks both living and deceased. Rock pool blennies and fringeheads....the list goes on and on. Finned all the way back to 4 ft of water and stood up and walked out. Excellent dive. Get out there before the swell gets here.


Terry S.

 

[MissyP]

Date: Nov. 9
Dive Location: La Jolla Shores
Time: 6:20 pm
Bottom Time: 1 hr 7 min
Max Depth: 74 ft
Vis: 15-25 ft
Wave height: 1-2 ft
Temp at depth: 59 F
Surface Temp: 63 F
Tide information: low

Nice night dive tonight, lots of critters out and the temperature was actually bearable! Kicked out to the red buoy in front of the main lot, descended in 22 ft and did a slow picture taking swim, heading towards the canyon. Several nudis out and about tonight, along with a few dozen octos, pipefish, lizardfish, cali sea slugs, crabs of all sorts, 1 lobster, round & thornback rays, many scorpionfish & sculpins, halibut, etc.. Spotted a 3ft horn shark heading towards us..and it just kept coming closer..and closer... next thing I know, the shark and I had a head on collision :11doh: After running into me, the shark swam under my buddies chest and then turned around to come back & hang out with us for a while. Social little guy The conditions were fantastic- vis was great, the water was calm both on the surface and at depth, and there was only a slight surge- hardly noticable. Good diving, enjoy it while it lasts!
Dive#143, sac .29

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Great pics. Watch out for all those killer sharks out there.

 

[MissyP]

Great pics. Watch out for all those killer sharks out there.

especially those "killer" baby soupfins that go after your buddies.. heh :05: He doesn't want to do night dives anymore LOL

 

[riguerin]

MissyP,

I don't know, but this sounds like an unprovoked attack ... might want to report it :05: http://members.aol.com/sharkform/saf.htm

Sounds like a fun dive ... nice pics.

 

[MissyP]

MissyP,

I don't know, but this sounds like an unprovoked attack ... might want to report it :05: http://members.aol.com/sharkform/saf.htm

Sounds like a fun dive ... nice pics.

somehow I don't think they'd take me seriously :05: although the little bugger did bump me hard enough to make me drop my camera!

 

[Roughwaterjohn]

La Jolla Shores

Conditions:
2’2” tide on a rising 1 knot flood
Waves 1’ or less with wind chop
Steady but moderate wind and swell from the S/W
Visibility 20’ throughout the dive
Max depth 110’
Average depth 85’
Total bottom time 1 hour

The Report:

Terry and I decided to do a mid-day dive to take advantage of current conditions, so we met up at L.J. Shores at 12:00 noon. Checking things out on arrival, I noticed there were no surfers around, the sea looked green in the shallows but blue near the canyon and the surferless waves were 1’ or less. All in all, it was an auspicious start to our impending dive.

Suited up and walking the beach towards our entry, we could see the strong breeze was making wind chop in what would have been a calm sea. There seemed to be a steady swell joining the breeze in it’s flow from the area near the Cove, which we shortly confirmed. The minor but relentless swell made us work to gain the buoy in front of the lifeguard tower, but gain it we did.

Slipping slowly down, the rippled bottom was visible as soon as our masks left the surface. We stopped before we touched bottom as we were already facing west. A quick but efficient buddy check completed, we headed towards the canyon. Visibility was a splendid 20’, which also happened to be our current depth. The visibility didn’t stop abruptly 20’ in front of us, but slowly faded away, giving the impression of greater vis.

Our first sighting was a 3’ Halibut ignoring us from his relaxed position on the sea floor. With his uncaring attitude and the sun glittering in the sand around him, he lacked only a Mai Tai and a good book to be the picture of contentment. Leaving him to his ease, we continued west. The thermocline tapped us gently on the shoulder at 35’, then rapped harder on our skulls at 50’. Being warmly encased in dry air and fashionable undergarments, we failed to check the temperature, and for that, I ask your forgiveness.

At approximately 80’, we cruised over the skeleton of a Sea Lion. As the skin disintegrated over time, it gently and slowly settled the bones into the sand, leaving an impression of an animal at play, lacking only life itself to animate these bones and send them playfully from under us. Continuing down to 110’, we turned south, encountering small Lizardfish, Armed Box Crabs, and the occasional Spanish Shawl.

Heading upslope, we encountered the Secret Garden, with it’s abundance of Pens, Pansies, Gorgonians in a rainbow of colors and Tube Dwelling Anemones. A variety of Cone Snails blazed trails through this abundance. As we continued south and up, Black Eyed Gobies and various shrimp peered at us from their burrows. We spotted a Mantis Shrimp lurking in his den, followed later in the dive by two more sightings at shallower depths. We saw a Dendronotus frondosus (Terry, is that correct?) hang’n in the breeze on a bit of detritus and several Pipefish, all in various states of camouflage on, in or under kelp or debris.

At 35’, we encountered a Lilliputian village filled with miniature life. There were more nudibranchs, crabs and uncounted variety of life than I can currently identify. Terry, with his encyclopedic brain may fill in these gaps later. Continuing shallower, there was a continuous onslaught of Box Crabs, Elbow Crabs, Erileptus spinosus, California Armina, Sea Hares and even a tiny Kelp Crab. Every plant or piece of debris seemed to give up the charade as we neared, scuttling, crawling or swimming away when discovery seemed imminent. The apparently placid bottom was alive with mischievous deceivers.

As we headed towards the shallows and our eventual uprising from the seas, we encountered the occasional Stingray, a school of baitfish, and a stone bowl, a reminder of dryer times in the ancient past. We continued into a couple of feet of water, where we stood to remove our fins and head back to dry land. With neither of us packing a camera, great visibility and nothing to distract us but the bountiful sea, this was one of the most leisurely dives I can remember. A thoroughly enjoyable experience.

John A.

 

[headhunter]

Great report, John Boy!

I've missed your undersea musings and hope to be able to read them more often.

Hope you are well and enjoying life on (and under) the water.

Christian

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Thursday night, November 10, 2005
Veteran's Park, Redondo Submarine Canyon (well... the upper edge...)
Drop time: 6:30 PM
Max depth: 68fsw
Coldest: 62 F (Aeris)
Visibility: 15 feet on the shallow sandy shelf, improving to 25-30 feet below 40fsw in the canyon.
Run time: 1'04

Seeing vertical purple sand dollars is always fun in the shallows of Veteran's Park dive site. Most are 3 to 4 inches in diameter, sometimes as small as 2 1/2 inches.

I never stopped to think about where they came from... Or where the little ones were...

Jeff and I got stopped abruptly tonight as we approached the edge of the canyon. We were meditating through the shallows, watching crabs, halibut, Kellet's whelks doing their things, when we noticed a patch of bumpy, pellet-looking things. White. All about a centimeter in diameter, none as big as 1/2 inch... these things were really small, and packed densely, several deep, in patches of about 2 feet around.
Patches of TINY TINY SAND... DOLLARS??? How about PENNIES?
The patches started at about 38 fsw, with plain sand in between the dense areas, and petered out by 44 fsw where the slope steepens and the kelp debris collects.

Very, VERY COOL. This is the first time I've seen this in the two years I've been splashing in at Vets. (Haven't grown a third eye yet )

The monument was covered with rock fish, all snapping energetically at tiny transparent fish fry that were clouding the water in thick patches. Several large octopus were unusually active around the bricks. And we found another Pleurobranchia californica nudibranch. Every visible nook and crevice on the monument had an octopus in it.

Found a big male Sarcastic fringehead in a large Astraea shell. He had bright green and yellow patches around his mouth, and took serious offense to my gloved finger being near him!!! I had heard they have big mouths... I had no idea HOW BIG and how aggressively they can posture when they want to. "No Problem, Mr. Fringey... I'll keep my finger and you can keep your shell!" As Dr. Milton Love says, if these guys grew to 3 feet long, no one would dare get into the local ocean.... Wow!

The rest was crabs (all kinds) and rays (thornback and round), and a BIG pink sea star about 18 inches across.

We had slipped into perfectly glassy obsidian water with 8 inch waves ("Are you SURE this is Vet's...'cause Vet's always pounds my head as we surface swim out to the drop spot.... this is weird...")

We had a great time playing in the wild blue yonder of smokin' bioluminescence with both our light turned off.

We surface to dimpled glassy water... "Hey! It's raining! How cool... you can see the rain drops bouncing into the smooth water."

The ghost-town-empty parking lot now had two very friendly faces gearing up: JonD and Frank-O... can't wait to hear what cool night stuff they got to see.

Thanks, Jeff, for inviting me for a dive.. that was fun! Watching that octopus take at least one full hard-working minute to squeeeeeeze into that bottle was really a kick.

Dive Happy!
Claudette

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Forget getting an 18 watt HID, you need a camera. You always make every dive sound like the most amazing thing you've ever seen. Plus, I hear rumors of an impending squid run in the next few weeks.