Two dives on Mono-lobo, Carmel Bay, April 10, 2014

Greg Hoberg and I made two dives on Mono-lobo last Wednesday.  We had 20 ft visibility on the inside of the kelp bed, 40 ft at the outside edge near the Carmel Canyon.  We saw the usual mix of rockfish, kelp greenlings, and numerous lingcod but no Cabezon.  We also saw one Mola-mola outside the kelp bed and one large dead mola mola on the bottom.  Water temperature has dropped to more normal temperatures, about 56 at the surface, 54 down below.  Offshore we saw a large group of humpbacks together with sea lions and sea birds hammering anchovies.  Hopefully Greg will get me some of the surface shots he took.  We drifted in his boat and had humpbacks surfacing all around us and swimming under the boat.  It is amazing just to hear them breathe up close.

Below are a few pictures from the dive, to see more please go to:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6058594422353834641?authkey=CMbdncXMwpBv

 The kelp beds are the thinnest I've ever seen them at this time of year.  I'm seeing many more kelp holdfasts that have failed and been pulled up into the kelp than normal at this time of year, usually they get pulled up when we start getting big winter storms.  I think it is due to the larger than normal population of sea urchins munching on them.  There are more small (and growing) sea urchins than normal because the sea stars that eat young sea urchins were decimated last fall and earlier this year by sea star wasting syndrome.

 Greg is getting some video of a salp that has been captured and is slowly being devoured by a sea anemone.

 It's a rough neighborhood for drifting salps coming in from the open ocean.

Though his head is invisible you can see neptune's white mustache and he is barfing up something white....or maybe it was just a white jellyfish..

 Mono-lobo has huge rock structures.

 If you look carefully ahead of Greg in this picture you can just make out a Mola-mola we saw outside the kelp bed.

 UFO, unidentified floating organism.  TBD, maybe a salp, maybe a pteropod...

 Greg found a large mola mola that had been partially devoured by something with a big bite.

 My hand to give some perspective on the bite size.

 Kelp rockfish

 Greg getting a closeup of an amorous pair of rock crabs.

I got a closeup too then we left them in peace....