Guy Foster and I had two good dives with the Sanctuary dive boat out of Monterey last Saturday. We had very calm seas and beautiful water. Our first dive was at "Local" just inside Carmel Bay. This was a deeper dive site than I normally dive - the anchor was in 80 ft of water and the shallowest peak at this site was about 65 ft. We had easily 40 ft of visibility and 53 degree temperature. This was Guy's second dive with his drysuit, now fitted with built in gloves, so he stayed toasty while I chilled...
Below are some pictures from our dive at Local, for more please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hQBU43hvBo9KY4uh2
Guy "splashes" to start our dive, in company with a moon jelly.
Guy approaches the bottom which was a scattering of ledges and valleys.
Guy with a Gopher Rockfish. You can see that we had plenty of light despite the depth.
A White Dendronotid Nudibranch munching away on hydroids. About 3 inches long. Not a bad shot considering I was shooting with my fisheye wide angle 10-17 mm Tokina lens.
This site is rather barren due to the plague of sea urchins, but there are clusters of beautiful hydro coral.
Guy carefully controlled his buoyancy as we went up the anchor chain for a safety stop after this deep dive, before ascending to the Sanctuary.
Our second dive was back inside Monterey Bay at "White Wall" off outer Chase Reef. The White Wall is in the same general area as "Aumentos" or "The Rise", just offshore from the outer edge of Chase Reef, near Coral Street. This is a high boat traffic site so you want to find the anchor in order to ascend at the boat, which we did. We had very good visibility 35 ft plus together with Purple Striped Sea Nettles and a scattering of moon jellies and juvenile Mola Molas down to 50 ft or so. Depths on this dive were 75 to 50 ft, so my wetsuit was well compressed, again, unlike cozy Guy in his drysuit. Update: I got a Christmas card from Donna with a drysuit drawn in it!
Below are some photos from White Wall, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HQpeyQlE9sZt9iL53
Moon Jelly
Guy carefully descends through a plethora of stinging sea nettles. We're pretty much protected but you don't want the tentacles hitting your lips around the regulator!
We ended up with a ceiling of sea nettles over our heads during the dive.
Sea Lions prey on juvenile Mola Molas, biting off their fins then leaving them to sink to the bottom where they are eventually devoured by sea stars.
Juvenile Mola Molas passed above us, feeding on sea nettles.
Olive Rockfish
Guy with a Lingcod
Treefish, check out this rockfish's lips.
China Rockfish, beautiful colors and patterns on these fish.
I like this top down view of the China Rockfish's patterns.
An amorous pair of Sea Lemon Nudibranchs.
The wall of Metridium Anemones gives this site its name.
Sea Nettles were at times close to the top of the peaks at White Wall.
Back up the anchor chain to the Sanctuary.
I request a photo of a mola mola, if possible.
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