You didn't dive MarineLand Today?
You have to be kidding me.
Did the grass need mowing? Blow it off.
Your car in the shop? Make your buddy dive.
It was Valentines day? Uh, bring her along.
Stop trying to rationalize it. There was NO good reason you should've missed diving MarineLand today. You're blowing it.
It was the perfect day today:
Due to the very low tide exchange (with tomorrow's being the only day this month with less) the bad viz didn't get washed out. Tomorrow will likely have worse viz and its gonna pour Tomorrow night and Monday. So if you missed it today, do not miss it tomorrow.
But thank you all for staying home, as Chica and I once again had the place all to ourselves.
Pre Dive
Here's this morning's text message exchange between me and Chica:
Ken (8:26 AM) "Winter?"
'dette (8:29 AM) "Naw. Missed it. That was yesterday. Catch up, will ya?"
"
Ken (8:29 AM) "We should be photographing 14 Species of Nudies at ML"
'dette (8:33 AM) "You're serious or teasing? It is quite the lovely day. Or do we Cherchez la Squid at the Manhattan pier?"
Ken (9:12 AM) "High Tide is 12:28 - Meet you at 10:30?"
'dette (9:15 AM) "Heck yeah!"
'dette (9:39 AM) "Use the hundreds?"
Ken (9:51 AM) "NO! Lets dress really warm & dive the 130s to the nub"
'dette (9:51 AM) "OK!"
'dette (9:52 AM) "HA! I was loading a 130 into the E as you sent that "
THAT my good friends is how you set up a dive on the fly. This exchange is just one of the 900 reasons I love Love LOVE diving with Claudette. The readiness, the enthusiasm, the on-the-fly planning, the go-go-go. Its why I snapped her up and she's no longer on the market, SoCal!
The last three times we've dived MarineLand we've ended the dive for three different reasons. But for two of the last three of these times we've come out with 1000 PSI of gas, and had to hump 1000 PSI of gas back up that hill:
Today's plan this time was to do a 90+ minute dive, dress for Seattle or MoCal (high 40's diving) and spend about 40% of the dive kicking so we have ample battery power for the return.
The plan worked as we had 100 minutes of bottom time, and still came out with a few toes (me with about 5 or 6 toes, Claudette with 2 or 3 toes) and had a wonderful dive!
.
.
The Dive
We were able to park very close to the entry point - on weekends when construction is minimal they let us roll onto the site (plus Claudette and I have made friends with all 3 of the regular guards and their supervisors )
We gear up - its warm. I'm taking off my sweatshirt and my hat. Dette is down to a tank. We gear up in our heaviest exposure protection:
We were way over dressed for SoCal diving! But it totally worked, and we were in the water about 110 minutes, with 100 minutes of bottom time and we were safe, warm, focused and had a great long dive.
And what a dive!
We walk in a little north of where we usually enter at Cobble Beach. Claudette had observed, and rightly concluded that the up-hill side of the arc of Cobble beach gets far less water movement when the swell is like it was today. At the cave, there were waist high and sometimes shoulder-high breakers. At the top of the arc, knee high at most. So we off-roaded the carts over the new greenery (from all the rain) and entered in a new spot for us.
We walked in. I carried the Deathstar in one hand, the scooter in the other and did the coal-walk over all of the big and little rocks into waist high water and then let the scoot take me out past the break where I could fin up. A perfect entry.
We dropped and headed to 210 degrees (our usual plan) and scoot on that heading until we start intercepting pinnacles and rocky islands at the elbow. Then we lean right a bit and work up the coast.
We'd scoot for a bit, shoot for a bit, kick for a bit.
We turned the dive, TURNED the dive at 74 minutes, and at about 900 PSI (chica had about 1100 - I use more gas when I'm shooting.) However, you gotta love how much less gas you use when you're warm!
We took our sweet time coming back.
We got to the exit point and we did a staged exit - its just better with numb feet and tired bodies. Our staged exits work like this:
This protocol is good for equipment but not the best for the buddy team, as Claudette may need to enter the surf zone more than once before she exits. Today was pretty mellow, so she was able to just stand up and walk out once she handed off the Deathstar.
I landed at the beach with about 120 PSI or less. I mean, I was able to unscrew my first stage at the truck without purging the system. Remember, the plan was to burn the tank to the nub - and we roached the cylinders perfectly to plan!
.
.
What'd ja see?
On our last two ML dives, when we had the place to ourselves, we saw 14 species of Nudi's on each dive.
Today, with the worst viz since November (3 or 5 feet in spots) we only saw TEN:
1. Fed Ex (several)
2. Hermi (the place is the scene of a mass hermicide)
3. Sandy (one)
4. Limbaughs
5. Rosie (many, MANY of them! Nearly all in Pairs)
6. TriLinny
7. Clownie (one - the first Nudi we saw)
8. Black Dorid (didn't see it until I processed the Clownie shot!)
9. Cuthona (A pair)
10. Lemon (bushels of them)
Of course we also saw Mantis Shrimp burrows (they are so wacky - each with a different item or shell comprising the coping around the edge), lots of barred Sand Bass, lobster, Octos, shrimp, rockfish on the deeper pinnacles and all of the usual suspects - but we dive MarineLand for the scooter topography and the Nudis.
Where are all of the Black Dorids? Egg masses on that fluffy green hydroid stuff all over the place. No Blackies (edit: the Clownie pic has Black Dorid eggs and a Black Dorid!!!) It wasn't until about minute 80 that we saw our first white Nudi (not counting the clown at minute 10) - a limbaughs. Then she found a Sandy. Where are the Yellow Lined Cadlinas? Where were the Flavahs? For slugs these guys get around.
.
.
.
.
.
Another super, super dive. You gotta want it, and in winter the shore diving is not always cooperative. Not content to "sit it out" this weekend, Claudette was ready, enthusiastic, prepared and able to make a dive on NO notice.
And what a dive we had.
Chica - you are the apex buddy. You make me dive better, you make me look harder for good diving, you make me appreciate every moment in the water. Thank you for what you bring to every dive. I'm done - every other buddy can go home now.
I'll post more pics tomorrow - I'm going back to my valentine now!
Enjoy.
---
Ken
====================================
Rosie Pair #1 - One of the cool things about Hopkin's Rose Nudi's (apart from their wild Rasta hair) is they nearly always are seen in Pairs or Groups. I love that.
Cuthona Pair - It is, afterall, Valentines day! At the top, between them are the pinkish Hedgehog Hydroids these guys love to eat. At the bottom between them is a Cuthona Egg Mass
Shrimpy - MarineLand is stupid with Shrimp
Clownie (and a sneaky Black Dorid) - all of the Black Dorid eggs in this shot should have tipped me off.
Fed Ex - They're everywhere. Deal with it.
Hermi - MarineLand is loaded with fat Hermis right now. Here's a shot of a single that I squeezed off through a a couple of gorgonias. Just to add to the difficulty.
Fatty Lemon - they just get huge at ML. The variety of colors for the ML lemons are amazing - from deep cartoon yellow to burnt orange, and all color variants in between.
Solo Rosie - there were so many yesterday. This was the only one we saw that was off wandering by its self. Of course when I came about and looked behind it on the other side of that ledge, there was his buddy.
DEPTH OF FIELD EXERCISE
As you know, I shoot in Manual Mode. For Nudi's my standard setting for local waters is about f16 - f22, and about 1/80th to 1/125th of a second, depending on surge, movement, water color, time of day, etc, etc, etc. But 99% of my Nudi shots start there and then roll a few stops up or a few hundredth's of a second down.
Yesterday we rolled up onto this nice TriLinny. He was all by himself, stretching out in the surge. It was going to be a good shot as I found a Nudi, alone, doing something. I braced and fired off about 3 or 4 shots. I looked at the shots, but there was so much junk in the water, and the surroundings were so busy that all of the other stuff in the shot took away from the creature. I wasn't satisfied and I wanted to soften up the background noise and make the critter the shot - not the reef scene.
.
.
FIRST SERIES (Big DOF) - this was shot within my Nudi default range. This shot was f18 at 1/100th of a second. Nice, clear shot - but artistically its got too much going on for such a fine specimen.
SECOND SERIES (Tiny DOF) - In this shot you can see I moved out of my default range. This was shot at f7.1 and 1/250th of a second. See how much softer the background details become? See how the kelp he's standing on sort of fades away as its details just disappear? The down side to a shot like this is this critter is about 5/8" of an inch long, and the DOF on a 105mm lens at f7.1 (while behind a flat glass port in the water) is miniscule. All margin for error is gone. This guy was flapping back and forth as he was very exposed, and I had to wait until the surge brought him upright, bracing myself and my scooter and the Deathstar against a cleft in the rock so I could hold still. If I was to even breathe I'd miss the DOF and his head would be out of focus. Even though the back end of this little guy has a soft fade from the very teeny DOF, its acceptable to me if his head and front end are sharp.
Next time you're out shooting, and your subject is against a busy background, think about softening things up a bit. You'll need to be braced very solidly, as any movement (even from squeezing the shutter) will pull you out of your focus range, but DOF is a fun way to present a different take on a shot.
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.
.
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.
.
.
.
.
You have to be kidding me.
Did the grass need mowing? Blow it off.
Your car in the shop? Make your buddy dive.
It was Valentines day? Uh, bring her along.
Stop trying to rationalize it. There was NO good reason you should've missed diving MarineLand today. You're blowing it.
It was the perfect day today:
- A very reasonable high tide at 12:28 PM - no dawn patrol required.
- Sunny - shorts and tee's weather.
- No breeze. ZIP!
- Clear - counting golf carts on Catalina clear.
- Parking a few yards from the entry point (love diving ML on weekends)
- Dolphins. A huge school, just lazing by.
- Pelicans - circling us as we unload the trucks, and again as we popped up 96 minutes later.
- A whale right outside the harbor - puffing heart-shaped exhalations for us as we walked up the hill at the end of the dive.
Due to the very low tide exchange (with tomorrow's being the only day this month with less) the bad viz didn't get washed out. Tomorrow will likely have worse viz and its gonna pour Tomorrow night and Monday. So if you missed it today, do not miss it tomorrow.
But thank you all for staying home, as Chica and I once again had the place all to ourselves.
Pre Dive
Here's this morning's text message exchange between me and Chica:
Ken (8:26 AM) "Winter?"
'dette (8:29 AM) "Naw. Missed it. That was yesterday. Catch up, will ya?"
"Ken (8:29 AM) "We should be photographing 14 Species of Nudies at ML"
'dette (8:33 AM) "You're serious or teasing? It is quite the lovely day. Or do we Cherchez la Squid at the Manhattan pier?"
Ken (9:12 AM) "High Tide is 12:28 - Meet you at 10:30?"
'dette (9:15 AM) "Heck yeah!"
'dette (9:39 AM) "Use the hundreds?"
Ken (9:51 AM) "NO! Lets dress really warm & dive the 130s to the nub"
'dette (9:51 AM) "OK!"
'dette (9:52 AM) "HA! I was loading a 130 into the E as you sent that
"THAT my good friends is how you set up a dive on the fly. This exchange is just one of the 900 reasons I love Love LOVE diving with Claudette. The readiness, the enthusiasm, the on-the-fly planning, the go-go-go. Its why I snapped her up and she's no longer on the market, SoCal!
The last three times we've dived MarineLand we've ended the dive for three different reasons. But for two of the last three of these times we've come out with 1000 PSI of gas, and had to hump 1000 PSI of gas back up that hill:
1) GAS Limited - Dived the HP-100's. Small, agile, light tanks - good for ML if you're not wanting to dive more than an hour. We're all about the BT, so diving these nearly always leaves us wanting.
2) Scooter Limited - We ran the batteries down to the point where I chugged out in the last 2 feet as I was walking out. We came out with dead batts and 1000 PSI.
3) Thermal Limited - We basically were popsicled last time we dived here, and we came up after about 74 minutes with no toes, on the edge of shivering and 1000 PSI in the cans.
Today's plan this time was to do a 90+ minute dive, dress for Seattle or MoCal (high 40's diving) and spend about 40% of the dive kicking so we have ample battery power for the return.
The plan worked as we had 100 minutes of bottom time, and still came out with a few toes (me with about 5 or 6 toes, Claudette with 2 or 3 toes) and had a wonderful dive!
.
.
The Dive
We were able to park very close to the entry point - on weekends when construction is minimal they let us roll onto the site (plus Claudette and I have made friends with all 3 of the regular guards and their supervisors )
We gear up - its warm. I'm taking off my sweatshirt and my hat. Dette is down to a tank. We gear up in our heaviest exposure protection:
- Dette - 300 gr polartec over her Carols (Carol Davis Sportswear #2 - the finest heavy base there is!) with an REI base layer over her tank and shorts - Carols socks with wool ski sox over those. Dry gloves with wool liners. Otter Bay 12mm helmet. DUI 50/50 DS
- Ken - DUI 400 gr Thinsulate Ultra over North Face expedition base layer over a tank and trunks, Carols socks with 300 gr Polartec socks over. Dry gloves with wool liners. Otter Bay 12mm helmet. DUI CLX450 DS.
We were way over dressed for SoCal diving! But it totally worked, and we were in the water about 110 minutes, with 100 minutes of bottom time and we were safe, warm, focused and had a great long dive.
And what a dive!
We walk in a little north of where we usually enter at Cobble Beach. Claudette had observed, and rightly concluded that the up-hill side of the arc of Cobble beach gets far less water movement when the swell is like it was today. At the cave, there were waist high and sometimes shoulder-high breakers. At the top of the arc, knee high at most. So we off-roaded the carts over the new greenery (from all the rain) and entered in a new spot for us.
We walked in. I carried the Deathstar in one hand, the scooter in the other and did the coal-walk over all of the big and little rocks into waist high water and then let the scoot take me out past the break where I could fin up. A perfect entry.
We dropped and headed to 210 degrees (our usual plan) and scoot on that heading until we start intercepting pinnacles and rocky islands at the elbow. Then we lean right a bit and work up the coast.
We'd scoot for a bit, shoot for a bit, kick for a bit.
We turned the dive, TURNED the dive at 74 minutes, and at about 900 PSI (chica had about 1100 - I use more gas when I'm shooting.) However, you gotta love how much less gas you use when you're warm!
We took our sweet time coming back.
We got to the exit point and we did a staged exit - its just better with numb feet and tired bodies. Our staged exits work like this:
- I go first with just a scooter - I clip off fins and strom the beach while Chica bobs just outside of the surf zone.
- Once in, I run up the beach, stage the scoot and scramble back into the surf line - reg in mouth, mask on grill - I signal her and she moves through the surf towards the beach.
- Chica does a drive-by on her scoot with my camera in outstretched hand. Depending on the conditions she'll make one pass and hand off the Deathstar like a baton in a relay race. I run back up the beach and stage the cam, then I come back down to the water's edge to monitor her exit.
This protocol is good for equipment but not the best for the buddy team, as Claudette may need to enter the surf zone more than once before she exits. Today was pretty mellow, so she was able to just stand up and walk out once she handed off the Deathstar.
I landed at the beach with about 120 PSI or less. I mean, I was able to unscrew my first stage at the truck without purging the system. Remember, the plan was to burn the tank to the nub - and we roached the cylinders perfectly to plan!
.
.
What'd ja see?
On our last two ML dives, when we had the place to ourselves, we saw 14 species of Nudi's on each dive.
Today, with the worst viz since November (3 or 5 feet in spots) we only saw TEN:
1. Fed Ex (several)
2. Hermi (the place is the scene of a mass hermicide)
3. Sandy (one)
4. Limbaughs
5. Rosie (many, MANY of them! Nearly all in Pairs)
6. TriLinny
7. Clownie (one - the first Nudi we saw)
8. Black Dorid (didn't see it until I processed the Clownie shot!)
9. Cuthona (A pair)
10. Lemon (bushels of them)
Of course we also saw Mantis Shrimp burrows (they are so wacky - each with a different item or shell comprising the coping around the edge), lots of barred Sand Bass, lobster, Octos, shrimp, rockfish on the deeper pinnacles and all of the usual suspects - but we dive MarineLand for the scooter topography and the Nudis.
Where are all of the Black Dorids? Egg masses on that fluffy green hydroid stuff all over the place. No Blackies (edit: the Clownie pic has Black Dorid eggs and a Black Dorid!!!) It wasn't until about minute 80 that we saw our first white Nudi (not counting the clown at minute 10) - a limbaughs. Then she found a Sandy. Where are the Yellow Lined Cadlinas? Where were the Flavahs? For slugs these guys get around.
.
.
.
.
.
Another super, super dive. You gotta want it, and in winter the shore diving is not always cooperative. Not content to "sit it out" this weekend, Claudette was ready, enthusiastic, prepared and able to make a dive on NO notice.
And what a dive we had.
Chica - you are the apex buddy. You make me dive better, you make me look harder for good diving, you make me appreciate every moment in the water. Thank you for what you bring to every dive. I'm done - every other buddy can go home now.
I'll post more pics tomorrow - I'm going back to my valentine now!
Enjoy.
---
Ken
====================================
Rosie Pair #1 - One of the cool things about Hopkin's Rose Nudi's (apart from their wild Rasta hair) is they nearly always are seen in Pairs or Groups. I love that.
Cuthona Pair - It is, afterall, Valentines day! At the top, between them are the pinkish Hedgehog Hydroids these guys love to eat. At the bottom between them is a Cuthona Egg Mass
Shrimpy - MarineLand is stupid with Shrimp
Clownie (and a sneaky Black Dorid) - all of the Black Dorid eggs in this shot should have tipped me off.
Fed Ex - They're everywhere. Deal with it.
Hermi - MarineLand is loaded with fat Hermis right now. Here's a shot of a single that I squeezed off through a a couple of gorgonias. Just to add to the difficulty.
Fatty Lemon - they just get huge at ML. The variety of colors for the ML lemons are amazing - from deep cartoon yellow to burnt orange, and all color variants in between.
Solo Rosie - there were so many yesterday. This was the only one we saw that was off wandering by its self. Of course when I came about and looked behind it on the other side of that ledge, there was his buddy.
DEPTH OF FIELD EXERCISE
As you know, I shoot in Manual Mode. For Nudi's my standard setting for local waters is about f16 - f22, and about 1/80th to 1/125th of a second, depending on surge, movement, water color, time of day, etc, etc, etc. But 99% of my Nudi shots start there and then roll a few stops up or a few hundredth's of a second down.
Yesterday we rolled up onto this nice TriLinny. He was all by himself, stretching out in the surge. It was going to be a good shot as I found a Nudi, alone, doing something. I braced and fired off about 3 or 4 shots. I looked at the shots, but there was so much junk in the water, and the surroundings were so busy that all of the other stuff in the shot took away from the creature. I wasn't satisfied and I wanted to soften up the background noise and make the critter the shot - not the reef scene.
.
.
FIRST SERIES (Big DOF) - this was shot within my Nudi default range. This shot was f18 at 1/100th of a second. Nice, clear shot - but artistically its got too much going on for such a fine specimen.
SECOND SERIES (Tiny DOF) - In this shot you can see I moved out of my default range. This was shot at f7.1 and 1/250th of a second. See how much softer the background details become? See how the kelp he's standing on sort of fades away as its details just disappear? The down side to a shot like this is this critter is about 5/8" of an inch long, and the DOF on a 105mm lens at f7.1 (while behind a flat glass port in the water) is miniscule. All margin for error is gone. This guy was flapping back and forth as he was very exposed, and I had to wait until the surge brought him upright, bracing myself and my scooter and the Deathstar against a cleft in the rock so I could hold still. If I was to even breathe I'd miss the DOF and his head would be out of focus. Even though the back end of this little guy has a soft fade from the very teeny DOF, its acceptable to me if his head and front end are sharp.
Next time you're out shooting, and your subject is against a busy background, think about softening things up a bit. You'll need to be braced very solidly, as any movement (even from squeezing the shutter) will pull you out of your focus range, but DOF is a fun way to present a different take on a shot.
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