Laguna Beach dive today

Well, now that I've gotten my hands on a camera (olympus tg-2 which is supposedly good down to 50' out of box with no housing), with a wide-angle lens (yessss), time to show off my dives!! I think I might have left the default settings on on the camera because... meh, today was a test-run

I made my way up through the road closures due to the rock and roll marathon around San Diego up to Laguna Beach. Went to diver's cove - it's about 1:15 to drive up there plus or minus, depending on the shenanigans the I-5N is pulling. Today it was smooth-going, so I got up there with five minutes to spare. It was overcast and a little drizzle-y, but when my most excellent dive buddy showed up from a cove over (he got a dive in earlier), he said it was nice and warm so dive on! (I still put my heater on... better to leave it unplugged than get 45mins in and call it for cold because I didn't put it on.)

Surf was a little rough... got worse right after we hopped in. My buddy, as usual, was awesome and helped me with my tanks getting into the water. Double 40's sidemount again for me - he was in backmount as usual. We decided to drop early because of the swells and because it was just disgusting with random bits of paper/plastic floating around the top with piles of ripped up kelp because... once we got down... surprise... surge like nobody's business :shocked2:

How was viz? In a word, sandy.

Well, we still managed to get in a nice 1:08 (according to my timer) dive which I think was a record for both of us because the water was so warm! (66º F). Max depth was 29', average was 20'.

1-Here's some of what we saw (I don't know the names of everything):


2-


3-oh hey, it's buddy!


4-what are these?


5-sheephead??


6-gobies??


7-the pink stuff..


8-Oh hey buddy... whatchu lookin at??


9-

...nice find!

10-another one!

(juvie garibaldi, eh?)

11-??


12-just following the school..


13-clam of some kind?


14-..and one of these things (???)


14-oh hey buddy... um, something's following you...


15-


16-pointy on the bottom too?


17-


..to be continued

18-I guess it's hangin' out time now


19-


20-and swimming next to my face time


21-


22-


23-


24-buddy found a nice fish hiding in the grassy stuff!


25-and the yellow thing!


26-and then I found some things too..


27-


28-


Getting out was a little bit rough too.. and of course I see some type of ray underneath right when the water was the worst, and viz was approaching sand-bed and we had already given up swimming in under the surface because the surge picked up even more. Getting over to my long-suffering buddy to hand off my tanks was difficult because the next waves (2-3' ??) rolling in kept pulling the water out from under my feet so every foot my head advanced, my feet went back in 2

Anyway, we got out ok, I ate my nice car-warmed sammich and warm watered-down juice drank, and set off on my merry way back to Sandy Eggo. Can't wait to dive again!

Nice. I added #s to the pics so I can answer some of your questions.
1-armoured sea star
4- looks like squid eggs, maybe some other species eggs
5-yes it is a sheepshead
13 - scallops?
14 - Limpets!
15-sheepshead
16- another sea star
25-one of the nudibranchs
26-sea urchin exoskeleton
28-starfish

2. Blacksmith
4. Kellet's Whelk eggs
11. Rock Wrasse
14. Keyhole limpet
17. Scaly tube snails
19. Sand bass
20. Senorita
21. Calico bass
24. Giant kelpfish
25. Tylodina fungina
27. Wavy Turban top snail

...and I'm envious. Conditions have been horrible in Palos Verdes for most of the past month. I haven't been in the water for four weeks, my longest dry spell since I had a broken foot more than three years ago.

Oh thanks guys!!

Max: I feel your pain I think I have more surgery on my horizon so I'm trying to get lots of dives in beforehand.

Thanks for posting, I have heard laguna has been quite "warm" lately.

At crescent it was 68.5°F at the surface and 56.7°F at 63' around dead mans this morning.