Greg Hoberg and I took advantage of very warm weather at the coast and reasonable sea conditions to take his boat to Carmel Bay for two dives yesterday. Our first dive was on the Pinnacles, we had 20 ft visibility (it's been sunny for days on end and rough with large swells this week) and water temp from 52 to 50 (deepest and clearest water). Kelp slowly recovering on the Pinnacles, mainly Bull Kelp but now some Giant Kelp and some Palm Kelp on the bottom. Still too many Sea Urchins. We saw the usual mix of rock fish, though not in large numbers, and Greg found one cooperative, picturesque Cabezon. We were pleased to be visited by a Game Warden while on the site. Too often this protected site still gets fished by folks that claim to not know better. Below are some pictures from our Pinnacles dive, for more please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/MEFCwrXbXyHcfKxh1
The primarily E-W canyons found on the Pinnacles have the effect of focusing the energy from swells from the NW so even down 50 ft you get taken back and forth several feet with each passing wave. When a long period swell is coming through you can get shoved back and forth down to 65 ft or so when in a narrow canyon. As you can see, we had very good sunlight though the water wasn't as clear as we had hoped. You can see a few Palm Kelps growing in this photo, despite the large numbers of urchins.
Copper Rockfish
China Rockfish, being shy, like usual.
The Pinnacles is known for having lots to beautiful, but slow growing hydor coral.
Greg gets a closeup of a cooperative Cabezon that he spotted.
I got a couple closeups, too.
Greg was visited by a fast moving, elusive, but curious sea lion a couple times. You can just make him out in this picture. Divers have very restricted vision through their masks, Greg never even saw the sea lion...
We made our second dive at "Ghost Tree" which is along the north shore of Carmel Bay, just to the west of Pescadero Point. This site is somewhat protected from a NW swell though it explodes into giant waves for big wave surfing when winter storms come in from the south due to the shelf of rocks just offshore. We had less swell on this site and 20 ft visibility, 52 degree water temp. Below are some pictures from this dive, for more please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/2CtkcSXoG6v0LebP2
Sometimes you spot something you've either never seen or never noticed before. The deep bolders at Ghost Tree had several clusters of these roundish "What's Its". I think they were some kind of mollusk. I wonder if they were immature rock scallops? TBD, maybe.
We chose this site because there was less swell and because the Giant Kelp bed normally found all along the north shore of Carmel Bay had a small area that is finally recovering from the sea urchin infestation that followed the sea star wasting disease that devastated a major predator of the sea urchins in 2013 and 2014. There were several healthy, well fed sea urchins on the site.
A sea lemon nudibranch amongst far too many sea urchins.
One of the largest Rock Crabs I've ever seen on a dive. He was easily 9 inches across. Wonder if he eats sea urchins?
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