Guy Foster, his daughter Tessa, and I dived with the Sanctuary Dive Boat last Saturday. There was a significant, fortunately short period, swell running and high winds forecast for the afternoon but the chop and wind were small when we set out so Captain Mitch took us down to Carmel Bay for our first dive at the center entrance of Stillwater Cove. Great bottom structure, large rocks, small ledges, significant, at last, giant kelp. Visibility was 20 ft and temperature was 52 degrees. Tessa and Guy dived together so that she could try out and get used to diving with her new dry suit, I wandered over a small area shooting macro with my 60 mm lens.
Below are some macro pictures from the dive, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/rXGGE58itPvtL9Wx6
Tritonia festiva, aka Diamondback Tritonia nudibranch, about two inches long
Sea Cucumber filter feeding
Yellow Dorid Nudibranch
Nudibranchs are hermaphrodites and the love to party.
San Diego Dorid Nudibranch, about 3 inches long
A beautiful Coon Striped Shrimp, about two inches long
Our second dive was back deep in Monterey Bay, after beating our way back north against the swells, at Sammit's Pinnacle. Sammit's Pinnacle is a large area at 45-50 ft of water off McAbee Beach with large rock structure, a very nice dive. We had 52 degree water and 25 ft of visibility at the bottom, much less in the brown plankton bloom water at the surface. There was also a 20 ft thick layer of drifting Sea Nettles to negotiate your way through...
Below are some macro pictures from this dive, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mEDjZKHaZkMA4oBZ8
A large Sheep Crab's face profile, Guy got some nice shots of this crab.
A white spotted yellow dorid nudibranch. My dive camera was stuck on f6.3 so I had to deal with limited depth of field for these two dives....
Juvenile purple sea urchin in front of a brown cup coral...
Curious Copper Rockfish
Painted Greenling
Lingcod
Ok, I finally have a couple half decent San Diego Dorid Nudibranch shots..
Not easy to get pictures of swimming Perch with my macro lens...like this one.
Bat Star with snails, are they cleaning algae off him? Or cleverly staying on his back so they don't get eaten by him?
As Guy started up the anchor chain, I had a few hundred more pounds of air pressure so followed below and lucked onto one of my favorite subjects, a Cabezon.
Now if I hadn't been stuck to f 6.3 I'd of had a cool picture of a Cabezon and an in focus yellow dorid nudibranch...
