Getting ready to head over to the mainland tomorrow (Wed. Nov 7th), and felt I shouldn't dive tomorrow given everything I need to get done before I leave. Of course that meant I HAD to do a night dive tonight. Boy am I glad I did. I think it was the best night dive I've ever done in 50 years of diving!
Had heard a few local instructors would be diving tonight, but the only ones I saw were just getting out of the water as the sun went down. Given the change in time Sunday, I misjudged the time of sunset and had to wait a bit until it got dark. The sky over "Lost" Angeles looked beautiful thanks to all your smog blowing gently out to sea. I could see well past Santa Monica.
Dropped down and was immediately confronted with the usual suspects. Since I stopped hunting bugs back in 1975, I now only take video... and there were plenty to serve as subjects. In general they were much less skittish tonight than usual. I guess once lobster season opened the vile unscrupulous divers who were poaching them in the dive park could take them elsewhere legally,. I haven't seen a tail-less carapace since season began.
Kelp bass were out hunting blacksmith, kelp surfperch, etc. I saw one take a kelp surfperch but I wasn't quick enough with my camera. Their competitors, the morays, were also out. I filmed one grab a blacksmith, but it stirred up such a cloud you can barely see the capture.
A beautiful round stingray was heading right towards my camera so I filmed it... taking a total of over eight minutes of it cruising through (and into) the kelp and algae. Reminded me of that song with the lyric "blinded by the light." But that wasn't all. As I was looking for one of my frequent moray subjects, I sensed something overhead and looked up. Coming over above my head was a torpedo (electric) ray! Wow... haven't seen one of those on a night dive in the park in a long time. I filmed a continuous 3+ minutes of footage as it soared overhead... and occasionally seemed to turn towards me forcing me to back kick.
Other subjects tonight included a solitary southern kelp crab (I usually see them roughly carrying a mate in one of their claws), three octopus including one jetting off a rock wall into the Sargassum horneri, a nice sulfur sponge that stood out crisply in my video lights, California and rainbow scorpionfish, a number of green abalone and several treefish.
However, the encounter that certainly takes the cake was when I sensed something coming at me from the dark, turned on the camera and had a cormorant come right at me! You can't see it in the opening seconds, then it appears... and collides right into my camera housing... then bounces off to continue its search for munchies. Now that was exceptional.
No more diving for about a month. Sniff. I guess I'll finally be forced to clean my house... and finish editing a few more episodes in my "Munching & Mating in the Macrocystis" cable TV show.
Dr. Bill
Still images extracted from the video from this dive may be seen in my Facebook photo album at the bottom:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100401715291131.2492269.11616&type=1
Had heard a few local instructors would be diving tonight, but the only ones I saw were just getting out of the water as the sun went down. Given the change in time Sunday, I misjudged the time of sunset and had to wait a bit until it got dark. The sky over "Lost" Angeles looked beautiful thanks to all your smog blowing gently out to sea. I could see well past Santa Monica.
Dropped down and was immediately confronted with the usual suspects. Since I stopped hunting bugs back in 1975, I now only take video... and there were plenty to serve as subjects. In general they were much less skittish tonight than usual. I guess once lobster season opened the vile unscrupulous divers who were poaching them in the dive park could take them elsewhere legally,. I haven't seen a tail-less carapace since season began.
Kelp bass were out hunting blacksmith, kelp surfperch, etc. I saw one take a kelp surfperch but I wasn't quick enough with my camera. Their competitors, the morays, were also out. I filmed one grab a blacksmith, but it stirred up such a cloud you can barely see the capture.
A beautiful round stingray was heading right towards my camera so I filmed it... taking a total of over eight minutes of it cruising through (and into) the kelp and algae. Reminded me of that song with the lyric "blinded by the light." But that wasn't all. As I was looking for one of my frequent moray subjects, I sensed something overhead and looked up. Coming over above my head was a torpedo (electric) ray! Wow... haven't seen one of those on a night dive in the park in a long time. I filmed a continuous 3+ minutes of footage as it soared overhead... and occasionally seemed to turn towards me forcing me to back kick.
Other subjects tonight included a solitary southern kelp crab (I usually see them roughly carrying a mate in one of their claws), three octopus including one jetting off a rock wall into the Sargassum horneri, a nice sulfur sponge that stood out crisply in my video lights, California and rainbow scorpionfish, a number of green abalone and several treefish.
However, the encounter that certainly takes the cake was when I sensed something coming at me from the dark, turned on the camera and had a cormorant come right at me! You can't see it in the opening seconds, then it appears... and collides right into my camera housing... then bounces off to continue its search for munchies. Now that was exceptional.
No more diving for about a month. Sniff. I guess I'll finally be forced to clean my house... and finish editing a few more episodes in my "Munching & Mating in the Macrocystis" cable TV show.
Dr. Bill
Still images extracted from the video from this dive may be seen in my Facebook photo album at the bottom:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100401715291131.2492269.11616&type=1
