Monday May 7, 2007
Marineland: Entered at the Point, exited at Cobble Beach
Buddy: Chica - rocked up, bringing your own fun, prepared, courageous, grateful
Splash time: 9:40 AM-ish
Run time: 75 minutes.
Max depth: 59fsw (Very low tide, about 0.1... rock climbing with the new D200 rig)
Water temp: 50 - 51 Suunto - Positively MoCal-esque
Vis: Excellent - 30 to 40 feet. Been like this for me only a couple of times
Gas: 32% for mad BT
#1 Reason for Pasley to return home: After 3 days in Monterey, there's no place like home
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After three glorious days in MoCal, I ran us home a day early - so here we are with a day off and nothing to do. I offer to Chica, "how about Marineland?" She said yes, we jumped on it.
Let me start by saying this was one of the most beautiful days of the year. Wow.
Monday was May's
WOTAD (Weird One Tide A Day) and its very low at 7:57, rising glacially about 5 feet by 12:36 AM... so no worries. If the swell is down, it should be a brainless entry / exit.
We arrive to a flat former MarineLand site (been a couple of weeks since I've been here. They've been busy!) and look out over a flat Pacific.
This should rock.
We walk up, look in, the water is clear. I'm counting urchins from the cliff!
This will rock.
We gear up. This is the first SoCal dive with my new rig. Recently upgraded to the Nikon D200. I had it in Monterey last week, but the shutter button is mis-aligned, and some of the other buttons are placed in inconvienent spots, so all of my Monterey pics basically suck. For this dive I'll adapt, and fix it later (I made the
modifications when I got home from Monday's Marineland dive.... so pics will get better this week and this weekend!)
With the super low tide, and the long bolder climb over slippery rocks, combined with the new and much heavier rig, throwing in the fact I'm still babying the rig (read: not all scratched up yet...), the clambor to the entry was slow and cautious.
We get there, and the surge isn't too bad, but the sets are strong. I get the fins on and make my plunge. I get 1/2 way out, and the cam immediately gets hopeless tangled in kelp. A big set is rolling in. Decision time. I make the decision to brace myself for the coming pinball off the rock, and I let go of the new rig :11: . I bounce hard off the big rock (putting a hole in my hip... memo to self: wear the crushed Neo suit for all MarineLand dives, dork) but compose myself and get settled. Heart racing, I feel around the kelp between sets, find the cam, untangle it, and come back in to catch my breath. I'm leaking but the new cam rig isn't.
'Sall good.
I should have sailed right out. What up? I think a moment between getting doused from the imcoming sets. The problem: I'm still weighted for Monterey. I have another 4 pounds on the belt... duh.
For the second try, I FILL the wing, time it perfectly and this time I'm able to kick out OVER the kelp (not thru it) and all is good. Simple, brainless, drama-free entry. Chica follows.
We kick over, drop into pristine water. After 75 minutes, I'm chillin as my whole left side is soaked.
We have a perfect exit at Cobble beach, and are greeted by Don and pooch. After "Hi", the first thing he says is, "is it as nice down there as it looks from here...?"
Chica and I smile! It was.
The rig is still pretty combative, so the pics are not what I hoped for (focusing is tough, and the shutter still sticking) - but I'm sure after the mods things will start to shape up.
Enjoy.
---
Ken
I love these snails. This is the first time I've been able to capture their eye. You can see the eye better in the
fuzzy original size here.
Claudette and I saw several Clown Nudis in Monterey. Up there, they were all 3" - 5" long!!!! This little baby was about 1/2 in long. He had these hairs on him you can see in the
Original here.
'Tata mania! Never seen so many. Of course, they're tiny (3/4" - 1") compared to the monstah's in MoCal. This one is on a dead run!
'Dette called me over to see this star. The pic does this no justice. Its an Ocre star, reaching off an overhang, spanning across space and landing one very out-stretched arm on a ledge. It was a great find - bit way too big for my 105mm lens to capture. Had to back way off, stop way down, shoot slow, flood with light. Technically, the image is a mess. But the best thing about photography is this: YOU WERE THERE! Thanks for calling me over to see this, Chica.
Shrimpy in a hole. For size scale, see the Quarter-sized brown cup coral on the left. Fuzzy full sized image
here.
Cuthona - more of these than I've ever seen before. I want to get back to MarineLand ASAP to shoot some more of these. They're one of our most beautiful Nudis, and they have exploded at ML.
Here's a pair of Cuthona on an egg mass. I couldn't turn around without seeing Cuthona on nearly every rock we came up on.
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As always, if you get the Red X of Death, simply right click and select "Show Picture." if that doesn't work, hit f5 to reload the page, and try again. SB and PBase don't always play well together.
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