Final Two Dives of the Season with Sanctuary on the Pinnacles December 30, 2017

Guy Foster and I had two good dives with excellent visibility on the Pinnacles.  We enjoyed very calm seas on the ride down and saw a Humpback Whale on the way down.  You know you've got clear water when you can see the top of the Pinnacle 25 ft below as the boat is maneuvering to anchor.  We made two dives on the Pinnacle because it was too ideal to bother moving to another location.  We had lots of Cabezon, several protecting eggs, and several Lingcod.  Water temp was 53, visibility from 30 - 50 ft.

                     Guy dropping down on the Pinnacle with a distant sea lion escort behind him.

Guy gets a shot on the sharp cliffside of the pinnacle.

 One of several lingcod we saw on these two dives, this is a real beauty.

                                               Male California Sheephead, saw one of these on last weeks dives, too.  There are certainly many sea urchins for it to munch on at the Pinnacles.

 A large male Cabezon is guarding his mate's eggs, which are the dark masses underneath him.  When male Cabezons are guarding eggs they are very reluctant to move so if you move slowly and carefully you can get closeups.  The Pinnacles are a marine sanctuary so there is a very healthy population of Cabezon and Lingcod on it.

                                         Sea Lemon or Monterey Dorid Nudibranch

 Back to the Sanctuary at the end of our first dive.  It's great the Pinnacles have some Bull Kelp again despite the hordes of sea urchins.

Guy getting a shot of a black Cabezon, it's the first time I've seen a Cabezon use this dark color, I think it was because of the very dark kelp it was lying in.

Another Cabezon guarding eggs, in the foreground in front of the hydro coral.

For more pictures from this dive, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZYbEo4HdIz8ljsUJ2

Two Dives with Sanctuary December 23, 2017

Guy Foster and I had two good dives with the Sanctuary dive boat out of Monterey last Saturday.  We had very calm seas and beautiful water.  Our first dive was at "Local" just inside Carmel Bay. This was a deeper dive site than I normally dive - the anchor was in 80 ft of water and the shallowest peak at this site was about 65 ft.  We had easily 40 ft of visibility and 53 degree temperature.  This was Guy's second dive with his drysuit, now fitted with built in gloves, so he stayed toasty while I chilled...

Below are some pictures from our dive at Local, for more please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hQBU43hvBo9KY4uh2

Guy "splashes" to start our dive, in company with a moon jelly.

                      Guy approaches the bottom which was a scattering of ledges and valleys.

Guy with a Gopher Rockfish.  You can see that we had plenty of light despite the depth.

A White Dendronotid Nudibranch munching away on hydroids.  About 3 inches long.  Not a bad shot considering I was shooting with my fisheye wide angle 10-17 mm Tokina lens.

This site is rather barren due to the plague of sea urchins, but there are clusters of beautiful hydro coral.

Guy carefully controlled his buoyancy as we went up the anchor chain for a safety stop after this deep dive, before ascending to the Sanctuary.


Our second dive was back inside Monterey Bay at "White Wall" off outer Chase Reef.  The White Wall is in the same general area as "Aumentos" or "The Rise", just offshore from the outer edge of Chase Reef, near Coral Street.  This is a high boat traffic site so you want to find the anchor in order to ascend at the boat, which we did.  We had very good visibility 35 ft plus together with Purple Striped Sea Nettles and a scattering of moon jellies and juvenile Mola Molas down to 50 ft or so.  Depths on this dive were 75 to 50 ft, so my wetsuit was well compressed, again, unlike cozy Guy in his drysuit.  Update: I got a Christmas card from Donna with a drysuit drawn in it!

Below are some photos from White Wall, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HQpeyQlE9sZt9iL53

                                                 Moon Jelly

 Guy carefully descends through a plethora of stinging sea nettles.  We're pretty much protected but you don't want the tentacles hitting your lips around the regulator!

We ended up with a ceiling of sea nettles over our heads during the dive.

 Sea Lions prey on juvenile Mola Molas, biting off their fins then leaving them to sink to the bottom where they are eventually devoured by sea stars.

Juvenile Mola Molas passed above us, feeding on sea nettles.

                 Olive Rockfish

Guy with a Lingcod

                                Treefish, check out this rockfish's lips.

    China Rockfish, beautiful colors and patterns on these fish.

 I like this top down view of the China Rockfish's patterns.

                                      An amorous pair of Sea Lemon Nudibranchs.

 The wall of Metridium Anemones gives this site its name.

               Sea Nettles were at times close to the top of the peaks at White Wall.

                 Back up the anchor chain to the Sanctuary.

Two Dives with the Silver Prince December 9, 2017

Guy Foster and I made a diving trip to Carmel Bay on the Silver Prince last Saturday.  Sadly, the Silver Prince has been sold and is being moved up to the Seattle area for diving there so this coming weekend will be the last time to dive with this boat.  Two years ago the Monterey Express was also sold and it moved to Mexico so there has been a very large reduction in available space for boat diving in Monterey.

Saturday had very calm conditions and was also unseasonably warm, which is becoming a more and more common tale, of course.  Our first dive was on the Pinnacles, we had very clear water, 40 ft plus visibility, and 54 degree water temp.  Guy was recently given a used Drysuit and decided to use it for our trip.  He quickly discovered that the wrist seals were too large for him so he had to quickly abort on our first dive and then sit out the second dive as well.  But it was a beautiful day out on the ocean and Guy took some great surface shots of Pacific Whitesided Dolphins and Right Whale dolphins that came and played with the boat's bow wave and wake as we headed home after our second dive.  A well trained rescue diver, Logan, vouched for by our boat's dive master Leroy was looking for a buddy so he joined us for the first dive and me for the second dive.

Below are some photos from this dive, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/4sizuHwx7z2qQwBc2

 A dive instructor told Guy, when you are learning to dive with a drysuit, the anchor line is your friend!  Guy wisely took this to heart for his first drysuit dive.

    Guy, his buoyancy well under control, pauses before ascending, with Silver Prince in the background.

 Still way too many sea urchins on the Pinnacles, so still way too little kelp.

Look at the size of this sea urchin!

                                            Olive Rockfish

Painted Greenling with a White Spotted Rose Anemone and more sea urchins...

                                                 Gopher Rockfish

                               Logan cruising on the Pinnacles

    This is the largest male California Sheephead I've seen in Monterey and Carmel, it's the size of the ones commonly found in the Channel Islands.  Sheephead eat urchins so he should be very well fed.


Our second dive was at Mono-lobo, we had 20-25 ft of visibility, significant surge in shallow water.  I buddied up with Logan instead of my usual diving solo when one of my regular dive buddies is unavailable.  We saw several lingcod and a school of blue rockfish.


Monastery, behind the beach named after it, photographed by Guy Foster at Mono-lobo.

Below are some photos from this dive, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/upZXuNaxn1lbMKdx1

Mono-lobo again has its usual beautiful mixed kelp forest of Giant and Bull Kelp.

                                           One of several lingcod we saw on this dive.

                                          Logan with another lingcod

                    Logan with what could be called a plethora of Blue Rockfish

                                          Black Rockfish

                                Painted Greenling and a Sea Lemon Nudibranch

Beautiful Giant Kelp during safety stop

Guy shot this photo of me just on board at the end of our dive

When we started back to Monterey after our dive we quickly encountered a large mixed school of Pacific Whitesided and Right Whale Dolphins that delighted us and themselves by playing in our bow wave and wake.  Guy took these surface shots.

Photo by Guy Foster

Right Whale Dolphins, no dorsal fins.  Photo by Guy Foster

Pacific Whitesided Dolphin, photo by Guy Foster

Photo by Guy Foster

Photo by Guy Foster

This next weekend will be Silver Prince's last dive trip here in California, if the forecast is decent Guy and I intend to join them.