Greg Hoberg and I had a second day of very calm seas so we cruised back down to Carmel Bay and again dived a new area for us because the kelp is thin enough to get Greg's boat into sites we normally couldn't reach. On our cruise down we ran offshore to look for whales and saw over a dozen humpbacks and some small dolphins (not close enough to identify). As we cruised east along Point Lobos a Gray whale and her calf surfaced nearby.
We enjoyed 30 to maybe 40 ft of visibility and 50 degree water temperature. The site off the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Butterfly House had large rock structures and we saw a number of lingcod. Below are some pictures from our dive, for more, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6284729561529716577?authkey=CM360fv95IbAYg
On our cruise back to Monterey we saw a Humpback breach and a lot of tail lobs and pectoral slaps.
You can see the Butterfly House near the right of the picture, directly inshore from where we were anchored in about 45 ft of water.
The site has some giant kelp, happily, but only a fraction of normal. Hopefully the sea urchin plague will diminish as the spiny sea stars and ocher sea stars recover and as the larger sea urchins are munched by sea otters.
Greg with a skeptical lingcod.
The lingcod ran out of patience with us.
Greg found a decorator crab eating a bat star.
Decorator crab munching on an orange bat star.
A San Diego Dorid (spotted nudibranch) at left center about four inches long, with an orange bat star.
If you look closely you can see a painted greenling illuminated by Greg's spotter light.
A beautiful painted greenling.
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