Good Dives at Monolobo and off Point Joe October 1, 2020

 Greg Hoberg and I took advantage of very good sea conditions to take his boat down to Monolobo at the SE end of Carmel Bay for our first dive last Thursday.  We were encouraged from the boat by the water color but disappointed once we splashed with only 20-25 ft of visibility.  Water temp at the bottom was a more or less standard 50 degrees.  Lots of health kelp, few sea urchins (very encouraging), normal number of rockfish but, surprisingly, again, no lingcod and no cabezon.  The lack of lingcod and cabezon is notable and worrisome.  No idea, in this protected area, why we didn't see any, on yet another dive.

The combination of high level smoke and being under dense kelp made it a dark dive.

Horned Nudibranch, aka Opalescent Nudibranch,  about3-4 inches long.  Shot with my wide angle fisheye so quite pleased...

Monterey Dorid, aka Sea Lemon Nudibranch, 5-6 inches long

Can you find the Painted Greenling?  Look just to the right of the Palm Kelp base in the center of the photo.

Greg with Metridium Anemones, aka Plumrose Anemones, on one of Monolobo's walls.

                                 Gopher Rockfish with dense invertebrate life.

For more photos from our dive at Monolobo, please go to:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ye5BgKHUzM8NWpiR8

We pulled up anchor and headed back towards Monterey to shorten the ride back after our second dive in case the wind and chop came up.  We decided to dive off Point Joe because the kelp forests there have been slowly recovering, they are maybe a third of normal now but have a much higher proportion of Bull Kelp to Giant Kelp compared to normal.  We dives on a likely patch of Giant Kelp in about 60 ft of water to minimize the surge from the 3 - 4 ft NW swell.  Again, we had plenty of the usual rockfish and I also saw one small Cabezon and one female California Sheephead but no lingcod!  Where are they?

This dive site had a scattering of rocking pinnacles 10-15 ft high on a rocky bottom.  Visibility was about the same, 20 - 25 ft, light was a bit better because the sun was higher and we weren't under a dense kelp canopy.  In this picture you can see Greg on the right and a sea lion that turned and darted away before my camera focused and shot, to the left of the pinnacle.

Bright orange encrusting sponge.

                                  Male Kelp Greenling.  Note how I carefully positioned the Palm Kelp stalk's shadow on his face....

For more photos from our dive off Point Joe, please go to:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bAkHc1swpWA4cQqM8