Little Farnsworth was sweeeettttt!!!!!

Sunday 14th July 2013 was my first visit to Little Farnsworth. Man, that joint didn't disappoint. Viz was blah on the way down but when you hit the pinnacles, horizontal viz cleared up to easily 40-ft.

And yes, there were some nice thermoclines too. One at about 20-ft (typical summer water temp of high 60s), one at about 50-ft and one at 80-ft (mid-50s). I got a bit of ice cream headache from the light summer hood, but do-able. Saw two big ass moray eels, several walking sheep crabs, the biggest Spanish Shawl I've ever seen at about 3" long, a Clown Nudie and most importantly, my first sighting of the sidegill slug Tylodina Fungina. A bunch of angel sharks were laying on the sand and I saw two small bat rays swimming about. Alas, we only did one dive there and then we had to move elsewhere for shallower water for a class.

I still had quite a bit of air left but the current came out of nowhere and reduced viz to near zero and started to rip so I made an ascension. Hung around the anchor chain at 40-ft checking out the jellyfish big and small. Saw one big purple jellyfish that was probably 10" across.

Second dive was at Church Rock. Well, the boat anchored too far away and I didn't feel like swimming against the current so I just went down the anchor and checked out the sand for something interesting. Found a couple of small sand dabs but that was it.

Third and fourth were made at Torqua Spring. That site was fun: young kelps out of the wazoo, lots of rocks and cracks to look around in. Found a couple of small eels, horn sharks, a bunch of small scallops and abalones, but most importantly a giant black seabass that cruised by tne anchor line at about 85-ft depth and more small bat rays swimming about at the same spot. And yes, a nasty thermocline at 80-ft that dropped the temp down to 54-F. Yikes!!!

Overall, an excellent outing for me. Got to go to Little Farnsworth and first sighting of the California sidegill.

The Great Escape doesn't disappoint.

Little Farnie is a pretty interesting site. I loved diving it back when I was on SCUBA Luv's King Neptune as the on-board marine biologist. Saw a few rare species there on my dives.

Church Rock can be interesting too. On one of my dives there the vis was horrible. I thought I sensed something big and thought it might be the landlord since the site is close to the sea lion hauling grounds. I hunkered down in a crevice for the rest of the dive. When I surfaced, everyone on the boat was asking if I got any video of "it." I replied "Did you see the great white?" They replied "No, you had a young gray whale above you for 20 minutes." Never saw the darned thing due to the poor vis.

And, of course, Torqua Springs is one the sites they used in filming "Jaws..." but it was just with the mechanical shark (ever wonder why there was so much giant kelp present in New England waters?

Dr. Bill, very cool history on the Jaws movie. I'll have to rewatch it again now just for that spot.

I was teaching high school marine biology on the island when they were filming "Jaws." Of course we really had no idea how big the film would be when it was released.