Two Very Good Dives off Butterfly House, Carmel Bay September 2, 2018

I went diving with the Sanctuary dive boat out of Monterey Harbor yesterday.  Sea and wind conditions were better than forecast so we went down to Carmel Bay.  On our way down we spotted a 5 ft Mola Mola  (Sunfish) at the surface, always cool to see.  Hope to get close enough to one to photo one day...We made our first dive off Butterfly House and then we all agreed to make our second dive there, too because of the excellent conditions and water clarity.  The water clarity wasn't bad even as we left Monterey Harbor but when we rounded Cypress Point into Carmel Bay the water became a beautiful deep blue-green.  There was no surface layer of heavy algae bloom like last week, visibility was excellent from the surface to the bottom.  We had 40 ft of visibility, the water temp was 52 degrees at the surface but 47 down at 72 ft, so the clear water was thanks to fresh upwelling caused by the previous several days of wind.  Again, I was pleased to see the growth of kelp off Butterfly House, it is probably still only 25% of normal but is still becoming significant.  I swear the rockfish schooling in the patches of kelp are all smiling about it.  I was shooting with my 60 mm Canon macro lens which I somewhat regretted since wide angle shooting would have been good with the great visibility.  Below are some pictures from these two dives, to see more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/SFJuRPWHWZ8prW2X9

                                          Orange Cup Coral, about 1 inch across.

    Hermissenda crassicornis, a Horned nudibranch, about 1 1/2 inches long

                          I found two Horned Nudibranchs, aka Opalescent nudibranchs, very early on my first dive, on a wall about 40 ft high, at 72 ft.   This second one was around 3 inches long.

                                Chestnut Cowries and a Monterey Dorid nudibranch munching on a sponge.

                                A curious Copper Rockfish

A juvenile rockfish, about four inches long, I'm not sure of the species.

                      This site has lots of hydro coral.  Hydro coral loves rock walls at the edge of kelp beds.

Chestnut Cowry next to a spiral nudibranch egg mass.

    Juvenile China Rockfish, about four inches long.

                                A male Kelp Greenling, it is not easy to get pictures of a full sized fish with my macro lens.  This fish was about a foot long.  I also saw a large beautiful Cabezon on the dive but I was unable to get in position to photo it.

     A beautiful young Treefish, another type of rockfish.  Check out the pink lips.

                                           Monterey Dorid

    Copper Rockfish

                                Juvenile China Rockfish