Favorite Cabezon shots

I usually just do my diving blog on individual dives or diving days but, in part due to frustration on not getting to dive because of prolonged bad conditions overlapping with days when I can go, then, a "Ray of Hope" Manta Ray tagging expedition in the Andaman Sea on the Diva Andaman that I should be in the middle of right now, due to the coronavirus pandemic, then the effective closure of my local diving just as Greg and I were about to have two good days of diving, also due to "stay at home" orders due to the pandemic,   I've decided to do a diving blog on one of my favorite California uw photo subjects, the cabezon.

Cabezon are the largest species of sculpin and are my favorite fish subject here in California.  Cabezon, incidentally, is Spanish for "bigheaded". Cabezon grow to around 30 inches in length and around 25 lbs.  The brownish/reddish Cabezons are males, the bluish greenish ones are female. Cabezon are masters of camouflage, they are excellent at shifting their color patterns to match the bottom wherever they are parked.  All too often, your first clue that you've found a cabezon is when it explodes off the bottom and disappears from you or your buddy nearly blundering into it.  Below are some of my favorite cabezon photos, to see more you can go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/LAPB7QbU7dz8sgCu8

 Here's a cabezon sitting in coralline algae.  Would you spot it in a glance if I hadn't told you he was there?

    Here I've zoomed in on the cabezon in the picture.  Look at how well his color pattern matches the coralline algae he is sitting in!

    Here's another cabezon matching the colorful bottom it is sitting on, at Wyckoff Ledge, off San Miguel Island, Channel Islands.    Note, he was harder to spot than he looks here, because he is illuminated by the flash of my strobe for this photo.

Here's a cabezon matching his pattern to a different range of colors since he is sitting near hydro coral.  

Greg and I always watch for cabezon and when we manage to spot one before we startle it we try to carefully move around and get pictures of it with one of us.  Below is one that has "flushed" due to my close approach.  It's a great display of its huge pectoral fins.

In the late Fall and Winter Cabezon reproduce, the female lays a large mass of eggs, the male fertilizes them, then the female goes on her way while the male remains to protect them.  Below is a picture of Greg with a male cabezon guarding its eggs, the large dark mass on the bottom, just below and to the left of the fish.

                 Are you a science fiction fan?  Cabezon faces always remind me of Dominar Rygel XVI from "Farscape": https://g.co/kgs/JSzgfD.  Compare to the face shot below.

    Here's another male cabezon perched right on top of the eggs he is guarding.  This was on a shore dive in Otter Cove.

    Here's Greg with another male cabezon guarding his eggs.  Male cabezon are sitting ducks for spear fishermen when they are guarding their eggs.  Even if startled, they will simply circle back to their eggs.

    Here's a big beautiful blue-green female cabezon.  Look at her huge pectoral fin.

    Cabezon love to inhabit the cross bars on offshore oil rigs.  Below 50 ft oil rigs let marine growth accumulate on the rig since it does not add significantly to forces on the rig from large ocean swells. This oil rig is off Long Beach.

     Greg Hoberg with a cabezon on the Pinnacles, Carmel Bay.

     Greg took this picture of me with my favorite California fish.

Good Dives with Beachhopper II on Metridium Mountain and Aquarium March 7, 2020

Guy Foster and I had two good dives with Beachhopper II last Saturday.  Our first dive was on Metridium Mountain which is very well named.  Its a big site with depths of 45 to 70 ft.  We had visibility around 20 to 25 ft at the bottom, less at the surface.  There was an abundance of Purple Striped Sea Nettles.  Below on a few pictures from this dive, to see more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3b2GM2ruAP2Q2CeP8

There were lots of Purple Striped Sea Nettles near the surface and in mid-water but few down at the bottom.

                               Metridium everywhere, aka Plumrose Anemones

                                Treefish

                                               Guy getting some shots.

                                Lingcod, it was in a protected area.

                               Up the anchor line for a 20 ft safety stop

     Sea Nettles provided entertainment while making safety stop, you can just see BeachHopper's shadow 20 ft above.

Our second dive was off the Monterey Aquarium, just East of its intake pipes.  We had some Giant Kelp on this dive, good to see.  I was visited by perhaps the largest sea otter ever on this dive, thought it was a Harbor Sea initially but realized it color and motion were wrong.  They are shy around scuba and I failed to get a decent photo of it...

                                 Female California Sheephead, there are more of these in Monterey than there used to be as fish shift up the coast with global warming.

                                Olive Rockfish

                                Aquarium's intake pipes