Otter Cove, February 20, 2015

I made a solo dive at Otter Cove today.  It was a good reminder of how much more work shore diving is then boat diving.  I had very calm water for an easy beach entry and visibility of 20 to 35 feet with sunny conditions.  Otter Cove is my favorite shore dive, it has excellent rock structure offshore.  I was pleased to see significant kelp offshore, in my other recent dives I've been sorry to see that only a fraction of the usual kelp beds are present from Monterey to Carmel.  I was surprised to see no sea urchins during my entire dive, on my other recent dives there have been thousands of sea urchins, formerly rare outside of crevices, everywhere I went.  Perhaps the sea otters have kept the sea urchin numbers down here.  I also saw more spiny/knobby sea stars here than I've seen elsewhere since the sea star wasting disease swept through the region in 2013.  I saw and photoed one sea star dying of the wasting disease though.  Another thing I was sorry to observe was how few fish are now at Otter Cove.  I see people spearfishing at Otter Cove nearly every time I stop by to look at the cove.  I saw one small lingcod and one very shy cabezon on the dive and a few shy rockfish and one female kelp greenling (right now male kelp greenlings are guarding eggs which makes them sitting ducks for spearfishermen and I suspect that is why the only adult greenling I saw was a female, (would normally have expected to see a dozen or so during a dive here).  For more pictures from this dive, please go to:  https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6118139076405759505?authkey=CJzO1J7xmPmHYg

 Aggregating Anemone

 A knobby sea star dying of the wasting disease.

Female kelp greenling, the only adult greenling I saw on the dive.