Swell, or lack of swell models

[MaxBottomtime]

Predictions looked undiveable this weekend. Overhead surf was predicted for Palos Verdes. Kevin Lee and I braved the ferocious sea this morning for a couple of dives. We braced for the largest swell we saw. It was nearly a foot. Well, six inches anyway.
Our first dive was a return to Golf Ball Reef. We can't get enough of the muck diving macro paradise. Kevin said he could see at least thirty feet as the anchor descended. Unfortunately the visibility didn't reach the bottom. It was the worst we've seen here. We didn't move far from the anchor, which turned out to be a blessing. I had hundreds of barracuda surround me during my ascent.

Callioplana sp.

Conualevia alba

We headed north to the Redondo Artificial Reef. There, we found blue water but strong surge on the barge. Even the Man in the Little Boat was laying on its side. I righted it and looked for photo subjects. The surge made it difficult to fire the camera before it lost focus.

Maybe the swell models were correct. It was pretty rough out there, but only below the surface.

 

[fnfalman]

Flat as a pancake at Catalina on Sunday 26th JAN 2014 too. Gorgeous underwater viz.

 

[TSandM]

LOVE that first Redondo Reef octo shot -- the colors are great!

 

[tursiops]

OP, not sure what your point is about swell models. And do you actually mean swell (the residue of a distant wave field that has traveled to where you are, with no more wind forcing) or wind waves (local/regional winds driving local waves)? The swell travels through many meteorological systems to get to you, and any errors in the predicted meteorology can really harm the accuracy of the swell prediction, because adverse winds on the swell can really beat it down.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I was referring to the National Weather Service and other sites who post predictions like this;
WINDS VARIABLE 10 KT OR LESS...BECOMING SW 10 TO 15 KT IN
THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 2 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 4 TO 6 FT AT 14
SECONDS.

It was dead calm with no swells at all.

 

[geoff w]

Wonderful pictures as always! Fantastic shots of the octopus eggs!

The swell and surf killed shore diving for me in Malibu this past weekend, but the waves were all over the place. Some spots had big sets well over head high, but just a few hundred feet away the waves were consistently only 2-3 feet. Looking down from above, and judging from the look of the water in the waves, there was a lot of stirred up sediment in the water, at least closer in to shore.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I watched the live cameras for a few days and it was flat at the west facing beaches in P.V. The surface looked great down to about 40-50' but it horrible on the reef.

 

[DwayneJ]

Hey - There was a actually a long but big swell with big surfing waves crashing down on the point. Visibility and surge associated with the swell at the Avalon was awful. Claudette and I motored past you post dive but you were under...

This was us at 7:41am...

 

[keithbt]

I helped with an advanced class at Vets this weekend. I thought we would cancel the classes because of the computer models I saw during the week....I get there Sat. morning and conditions were PERFECT...6" surf...no lip... 20' vis...and no surge...We could see P.V. malagaish from the parking lot and there was a huge mass of white water about every 14 seconds..I assume they were huge waves...The great conditions lasted thru the day (dives 1 and 2) and into the evening, because we returned to do dive 3 that night and it was still perfect. Sunday was not quite as good for dives 4 and 5.... 1' surf...10 foot vis...slight surge...

 

[drbill]

Swell? What's that? One of the advantages of living on the leeward side of Catalina!

I've seen several HUGE schools of barracuda (including at least 500-1,000 of them right in the dive park off the Suejac) and assumed they were spawning.