Wharf 2, aka Commercial Wharf, Monterey Post Retirement Dive #834 June 7, 2025

I've heard of the great macro diving at Wharf 2 for years and have recently been seeing a number of posts online from dives there. Yesterday Guy Foster and I decided to dive the wharf because of the unfortunate breakdown of Beachopper II. We had a very good, long 1 hour 20 minute dive with very good visibility, for the wharf, of about 20 ft. Hundreds of nudibranchs! We hadn't done a beach dive in a few years and boy, are they a lot more physical work than boat dives! We had about a 50 yard walk through the sand to reach the water (it felt like 200 yards!) and then, following the excellent, helpful, advice of a couple other divers that took pity on wharf newbies, did a long surface snorkel swim, well past the first sharp bend, dropping near the second "kink" in the wharf. We were instantly rewarded with a macro target rich environment. It was my first dive with my birthday present (I'll be 72 in nine days) from my wife, Donna, a new BC which will be great for travel because it is much lighter and more compact it is of the backfloat type as opposed to a wrap around and it will allow me to use its integrated weights instead of the separate weightbelt I've been using with my old BC for a couple decades...The new BC worked spendidly. Maximum depth 27 ft, 56 degrees. I was chilled in my wetsuit for the last 20 minutes... Some pictures from the dive below, all shot with my 60 mm Canon lens. To see the rest of the pictures from the dive please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JQm4NzfJr7npzHWu9 Upon descending I immediately realized there were beautiful invertebrates everywhere you looked, on the pilings and in the sand between them. Below: a small crab on a tube anemone

Engard! If you look closely, you can just make out the beady little eyes of this 2 inch crab with his outreached claws, below:

Below: Scientific name: Hermissenda opalescens Common name: Opalescent Nudibranch I quickly realized (I miss identified them as Horned Nudibranchs, Hermisenda Crassicornis at the time...the difference is subtle) that these nudibranchs were present in the hundreds (like ants one fellow diver commented). Here's the first of many I photographed.

Another cool crab, maybe 3 inches across, below:

Above: Strawberry Anemones, aka Club Tipped Anemones, very beautiful in macro. There were lots of small juvenile rockfish all around, below are a couple of them:

More Opalescent Nudibranchs, hey, they're beautiful. Below: Love this one making its way across a Bryozoan colony.

Below: Foreground, Black Eyed Goby, background, Opalescent Nudibranch

Opalescent Nudibranch with a pair of clam siphons to its left, below:

Below: A pair of pictures with the Opalescent Nudibranch on the left, and if you look carefully, a Dock Shrimp (aka Coonstripe Shrimp) in the center of the photograph.

A very helpful diver told us where we could reliably find one or more Spanish Shawl Nudibranchs (they sport the colors of Donna's alma mater University of Florida...yep I married a gator, I'm a true Florida boy..) and how to find the spot. Sure enough, we found it! Below:

There were also juvenile flatfish (sand dabs, flounder,....) in abundance:

This was, I think, a new type of nudibranch for me, Black Dorid, aka Barnacle Eating Dorid, each about 1/2 inch long, below:

Guy later spotted a larger Black Dorid on the leg of a Decorator Crab climbing on a column:

As we started making our way back to end the dive I spotted the second of these nudibranchs I've ever seen, Scientific name: Triopha maculata Common name: Spotted Triophaabout 4 inches long, below:

A great, fun, macro dive at the wharf. Must do it again! A week from now I'll be on a long anticipated 22 day diving trip, 5 days shore bound, 17 days on a liveaboard, in the Philippines. Possibly I'll squeeze one more dive in next week...

Metridium Mountain, Post Retirement Dive #832 May 3, 2025

I had a very memorable dive with Guy Foster with Beachhopper II on Saturday. Gale force winds were in the forecast for later in the morning and small craft advisories had been up overnight so it was breezy and choppy as we headed out and became rougher as we approached the dive site. Upon descending all was calm with excellent 30 to 50 ft of visibility. Metridium Mountain with its dense population of white Plumrose (Metridium) Sea Anemones at 55-60 ft of depth became visible quickly as we descended. Below:

Below are some photos from the dive, for more, please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8HfPyDYW7zzoMwaXA Below: A pair of Pile Perch

The site also has lots of Tube Anemones in the sand around the site's boulders, below:

As I began a circle of the site a Cabezon suddenly shot over my left shoulder and then did a headstand, not normal behaviour, on the bottom up ahead of me. I realized it was struggling with an octopus. I didn't get a photo of the struggle but after the octopus escaped I got a photo of the octopus with the Cabezon in the background and a couple pretty good photos of the understandably upset octopus. In the first picture below, the octopus has just gotten free of the Cabezon (near bottom, center, of wide angle shot), followed by a zoomed in view of the two of them.

Next, as I got closer to the octopus, an excited Gopher Rockfish briefly considered trying its luck with the octopus, it wisely demurred. Second photo is zoomed in on the beautiful, alarmed, octopus. Below:

I got three more photographs as the octopus quickly retreated to safety, below:

Next, one of the other divers on our trip, not sure who, attempted to get a shot of the octopus back in its hole. Below:

A beautiful, concerned, Copper Rockfish, below:

A large, beautiful Lingcod on its perch, below:

A Sea Lion came past to check us out, below:

Another Lingcod parked in the sand, below:

Another Copper Rockfish, below:

Guy near the anchor line, below:

I got some pictures of a pretty Treefish (a rockfish), which are frequently very shy:

Another Lingcod confidently perched amongs Metridium (Plumrose Sea Anemones), below:

This was a wonderful dive. I started back up with at least 700 pounds pressure for my three minute safety stop at 20 ft and for the tricky boarding of Beachhopper II in rough seas....My fins aren't easy to get off and Laura did a great job of getting them off me while the dive platform rose and plunged. I boarded the boat with only 250 pounds pressure remaining.. Out of an over abundance of caution (I'm leaving on big dive trip to the Philippines in 41 days, not that I'm counting or anything) I decided to sit out the next dive and I missed a great one from everyone's reports...