Dives at Mono-lobo and around wash rock NE of Cypress Point, March 11, 2015

Greg Hoberg and I had two good dives last Wednesday.  We had extremely calm, flat, seas, with no discernible swell.  Water temperature down at Carmel Bay seems to have returned to a more normal 50-51 degrees while Monterey Bay is still a warmer than usual 56 degrees.  On the cruise down we saw a large group of 40-50 Risso's dolphins.  We also saw a couple of Gray whales in the distance.  Visibility at Mono-lobo was a disappointing 15 -20 ft so we made our second dive inside the north side of Cypress Point where we had 35 ft of visibility.  These were my last Monterey and Carmel winter dives for this year.  My wife and I set out for Florida next week so my next dive blogs will be from diving the Gulf of Mexico, my old stomping grounds.

 We ran into a vermilion rockfish that was more confident and cooperative than this species typically seems to be.

 This is the largest rockfish I've seen in awhile.  This is a copper rockfish, for scale, the anemone below (and just behind...) is at least 10 inches across.  I put this rockfisn at about 5 lbs or so.  This site has been made a marine protected area and we are seeing more large fish as time goes by.

 Treefish (a type of rockfish), they are always shy.

Greg with a large lingcod.

To see more pictures from the Mono-lobo dive please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6125733918903358497?authkey=CKn2qfiViOS1Og

 We were chilled from our first dive so on this dive, which was shallow - 8 ft to 36 ft - we swam and circled a large wash rock.

 Greg with a transparent "whatsit" - a pelagic salp, I think.

 We were briefly visited by a sea lion but he was too shy for closeups.

The extremely rare, calm, conditions allowed us to comfortably go up shallow on the wash rock where you find Giant Green Anemones and a colony of green anemones which thrive in turbulent conditions.  There was also lots of sea urchins, hopefully the sea otters, wolf eels, and sheepshead will cull there numbers in weeks and months to come.  I hope there are the usual big thriving kelp beds this summer when I return to dive Monterey and Carmel again.

To see more pictures from our circumnavigation of the wash rock NE of Cypress Point please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6125733484647903633?authkey=CM_w29n976PXag