Marine Room 06/22/14

[thez_yo]

My dive buddy and I had another nice shallow dive at Marine Room today. We thought viz might be terrible because he's been seeing terrible conditions all week, but were pleasantly surprised. We decided if it was bad on the kickout towards the kelp/grass we'd just aim for deeper waters. Anyway, it turned out well with not really milky viz, but a bit of particulate in the water, but still viz was 15-20' in places. Down about an hour and five minutes, 19fsw max with 9fsw average, and somehow my computer's saying 69ºF! We were pretty shallow and the sun was getting down, so I shouldn't be too surprised. We scared up a lot of rays, and saw a guitarfish on our entry, but didn't get pics of those with hands full of fins and stuff.

Here's what we saw:


such a terrible pic, but I swear it looked like a baby, maybe wolf eel? swimming into the seagrass








lots of lobster this time


this skate was the size of my buddy!


here's the head - it was strange it was on the rocks, because I'm used to seeing them buried in the sand


buddy! He was using his 120cuft today








Anyone know what these are? They've got red stripes.. I'll post a video I got of them once it uploads. There were easily hundreds of them schooling.




And in the murkiest waters possible of course, my favourite - a bat ray! My buddy found it (and a pretty big one at that)


they seem to hang out, until you swim up to them








another skate!


More fish hanging out








and a nice bird on exit!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Great post!
Your pics give a genuine feel for how it was.
Do you know who lives in that mansion?
Where exactly is Marine Room?

 

[thez_yo]

Haha, thanks. Yeah, no sugar-coating the terrible San Diego viz by me.

Marine Room dive site is named after the restaurant there, by the walkway down to the beach. Search for it on Google Maps, and just south of the restaurant is a paved path down to the ocean (this is in La Jolla). Hang south once you get out into 6-8fsw, and drop once you see sea grass/kelp.

No idea of who lives there.

Here's the video of that school of fish:
P6220125 - YouTube

I can't seem to make youtube actually imbed videos here.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Posting Youtube videos

 

[thez_yo]

Posting Youtube videos

Awesome... thanks! Now I get it after seeing the code.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Vis doesn't look too crappy to me. You should see how bad it is in Norcal right now with the winds and all, really sloppy.

I really like all the pics because they are wide angle and give me a feel of what it was really like. Very raw and truthful.
Not that I don't like strobe lit macro shots perfectly staged and all set up just right, but yours are more "inclusive" of what else is around, and gives a true sense of what I would see if I jumped in and dove there.
I love the shot of the diver too because it's a "regular" diver just diving and having fun Socal style.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Unfortunately wide angle days are few and far between in SoCal. I've taken my wide angle lens on several dives this year and haven't had more than 15-18 feet vis on any of them.

 

[FM1520]

Pictures in order starting with the first one after the picture of your buddy:
Black Perch
Black Perch
CA Spiny Lobster
Ocean whitefish (Juvenile)
Sargo
Bat Ray
Rock Wrasse
Kelp Bass
Garibaldi
Rock Scallop
unknown
Opaleye
Halfmoon
Barred Sandbass

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The school above the Sargo is California Salema, Xenistius californiensis.
The "rock scallop" is an abalone.

 

[FM1520]

The school above the Sargo is California Salema, Xenistius californiensis.
The "rock scallop" is an abalone.

I agree.