Last three dives of six day Vision Channel Islands Trip 11-19-16

Saturday, November 19th was the last day of our six day trip on the Vision to the Channel Islands.  Our last day we did three dives off the north side of Santa Cruz Island in order to have a relatively short run back to Santa Barbara.  The first dive was on a pinnacle just offshore.  Below are some pictures from this dive, you can see more at:  https://goo.gl/photos/9jMETTiZKCkADBCR7

                                          Chestnut Cowry

  Spanish Shawl nudibranch, about 2 inches long, feeding on hydroids, surrounded by Strawberry Anemones.

Our second dive was in a tiny bay on the north side of Santa Cruz Island, below are a few pictures from this dive, to see more:  https://goo.gl/photos/X6MGSx99oB5YixFV6

                                         A lingcod gets tense at my close approach.  I left him in piece.

                                A large male California Sheephead

                  A Bluebanded Goby.  We don't have these as far north as Monterey (they stop at Morro Bay).  The largest bluebanded goby in a group becomes male from female (and they can go back and forth...).  I'm very pleased at this shot from our second dive since I was using my wide angle 10-17 mm Tokina Fisheye lens.

                                          Green Anemone, not to be confused with Giant Green Anemone...

 As professional underwater photographer and videographer Tom Campbell would say "Have a conversation with your subject"!  In this case, a juvenile Garibaldi.

                                                 Juvenile Garibaldi

                                Spanish Shawl nudibranch

    Spanish Shawl Nudibranch

                          A Senorita, earlier in the trip I got shots of these cleaning Blacksmiths.

Our final dive was outside Painted Cave.  Painted Cave is one of the largest natural sea caves in the world and since conditions were ideally calm, our captain took the Vision completely into the cave, maybe a couple of hundred feet!  The cave goes back something like 1200 ft!  Below are a few pictures from my final dive of the trip, to see more please go to:  https://goo.gl/photos/ND1REffWsMY5f5N56

    Spanish Shawl nudibranch feeding on hydroids.  Nudibranchs are short lived and seasonal, I saw many times more Spanish Shawl nudibranchs on this trip than in all my previous California diving, combined....So of course I kept taking their pictures, though I stubbornly refused to switch over to my 60 mm Canon Macro lens.

                                This is why I like to stick to my wide angle Tokina fisheye lens, because you never know.  I was buzzed without warning several times on this dive, this was the best sea lion shot I managed to get...
                             

                                                  A glowing yellowish Green Anemone.

                                A Crowned Sea Urchin

At the end of this final dive I rinsed off ASAP and crawled back into my bunk for the 2 hour or so trip back to Santa Barbara.  The nap equipped me for the 394 mile drive home that I started at 5:30 and ended at home at Midnight.  Great Trip!