Coastguard Breakwater, Friday October 10, 2014

Greg Hoberg and I were planning to dive either the outer Monterey Bay or do our usual jaunt down to Carmel Bay but as we were passing Hopkin's Marine Station a warning buzzer went off and we had a "no oil" alarm!  We new we had plenty of oil but were concerned that the oil injection had failed...though we hoped it was a sensor failure.  So we slowly motored back to the Coastguard Breakwater and did a dive about 3/4 of the total length from shore.  We had a good dive with an energetic cormorant repeated diving into the rocks around us and occasional buzzing sea lions.  We had 15 to 20 feet of visibility and 56 degree water.  We saw the usual tube anemones in the sand with a new (to us) type of fish in a burrow in the sand munching on a small crab carcass.  We saw several lingcod, striped sea perch, and Rubberlip sea perch.

 Greg took some shots of this little guy too so I hope with his pictures we can figure out what fish he is.

 There are several types of burrowing anemones to be found in the sand along the breakwater.

 A variety of tube worm colors.

 Obviously I have trouble resisting photographing posing lingcod.

 A photo bombing juvenile blue rockfish - he better watch out or he will be lingcod lunch.

 Still got his portrait.

 The striped sea perch seem more relaxed with divers at the breakwater no doubt to the many times they see divers.

 The cormorant was always moving very fast and rapidly sticking his head into holes around us trying to catch his lunch.  I suspect our stirring things up created hunting opportunities for him.

 Ok, now I've been repeatedly mooned by a cormorant.

Rubberlip Sea Perch

To see more pictures from this dive, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6069086532926305953?authkey=CP_1jOzC37qtmAE

Dives off Sunset Point and off north side of Cypress Point

Greg Hoberg and I made one dive just inside Sunset Point and just NW of the inner wash rock of Cypress Point.  Seas were a bit rough with a short period swell and wind chop and winds were much higher than forecast.   The water was a beautiful blue with visibility ranging from 20 ft to over 30 ft.  We found some big rock structure with vermilion rock fish at the outer edge of the kelp forest off Sunset Point, we want to dive this area again, depth - 65 ft plus- and time kept us from seeing a lot of it.  The second dive off Cypress Point was shallow with good light due to thin kelp cover probably, again, due to a profusion of sea urchins compared to normal...come on sea otters!  Small pinnacles throughout the area covered in rich sea life.

 Greg passing a nice sized ling cod.

 We found some nice large rock structure at the otter edge of the kelp bed off Sunset Point.

 A nice sized overhang at around 65 ft.  We saw some vermilion rockfish but I failed to get close enough to get a decent shot.

Some of the kelp forest was good and thick other parts seemed to be thinned by sea urchins.

 Greg checking the lay of the anchor.

 Lots of black and yellow rockfish.

 A sea lion made a couple fast passes to check us out.

 A lavender colored ocher sea star caught my eye.

To see more pictures from off Sunset Point please go to: https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6068422631267168305?authkey=CIq7keOZvvLEegit

To see more pictures from off Cypress Point please go to:  https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6068422748949989793?authkey=CKC-tMH7ornbBA

A dive on the Pinnacles and a second dive at Mono-lobo, 10-2-2014

Greg Hoberg and I had a second good day of diving on Thursday.  The swell was down to four feet and the wind chop vanished by mid-day.  We had 30 feet plus visibility at the Pinnacles and easily 25 feet at Mono-lobo.  Water temperature was 52 degrees.

 Greg with blue rockfish and typical large rock structure at the Pinnacles.

 Diving in a kelp forest with clear water and sunny weather is magical!

 A colony of salps.

Greg getting a salp photo.

To see more photos from our Pinnacles dive please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6066198095707927105?authkey=CLjV27qZk6b_rQE

This lingcod at mono-lobo was sitting near our anchor line as we started the dive.  Our dives start with going down the anchor line to insure that the anchor will stay in place and also be retrievable from the boat after the dive.....usually this works out for both needs....usually.

Greg getting some lingcod shots.

A blue-ring topsnail grazing on kelp.

Greg with a lingcod.

I'm seeing a lot of kelp holdfasts pulled free from the bottom this year, I think this is due to more sea urchins but holdfasts do get pulled free when storms or big swells come in.

To see more pictures from our second dive at monolobo please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6066194525770339249?authkey=CK-TkdCfiYTHYg

Two dives off Pescadero Point, Carmel Bay, October 1, 2014

Greg Hoberg and I made two dives off Pescadero Point this Wednesday.  There was a large 6 to 8 ft swell running but Pescadero Point was sheltered and we had 25 feet of visibility and 52 degree water.  We saw lots of nudibranchs of several species - Catalina Triopha, Horned nudibranch, Hilton's nudibranch, Hopkin's Rose nudibranch, Ohner's Nudibranch, and the ever common Sea Lemon Nudibranch.  We saw several cabezon, a couple of them guarding their eggs, and several lingcod.
To see all the pictures I posted from these dives, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6066110055453200305?authkey=CLjM-ZPL38aHXA

 Copper rockfish with an abalone peeking from its hideaway.

 Greg with a cabezon.

 Here is a clutch of cabezon eggs - there are thousands.  The male cabezon guards the eggs and returns to its guard position seconds after we disturb it.  This behavior makes cabezons sitting ducks for spear fishermen this time of year and of course if the male cabezon is killed small fish immediately devour all the eggs.

 Male cabezon next to his clutch of eggs.

 Ohdner's nudibranch.

 This string of drifting salps come to a gruesome end in the clutches of a hungry sea anemome.
 Hopkin's Rose Nudibranch, about 3 inches long.

 Greg getting a photo of a beat up jellyfish.

 Kelp rockfish, a yellow sea lemon nudibranch and an orange puff sponge.

Lots of sea urchins give us thinner kelp coverage this year.  The sea star wasting syndrome decimated large sea star populations which normally feed on small sea urchins.  Hopefully the sea otters we saw from our boat will soon decimate this sea urchin population.