There's no place like home.

[Merry]

Vis has been highly variable at our home away from home, Golf Ball Reef, but we still find different subjects to shoot. We never know what we're going to see, or what new animals will emerge as the reef's life cycle continues.

A view of Palos Verdes Peninsula from GBR.

Flabellina iodinea swimming in the water column.

Juvenile calico rockfish remind me of butterflies as they dart around the rocky rubble.

Young kelp plants at GBR support miniscule shrimp, nudis, and flatworms. They're generally hiding under the fronds, somewhat cryptically colored and transparent.

Phil found lion nudibranch eggs (Melibe leonina) several weeks ago on young kelp plants at the north end of GBR. I estimate this youngster to be ~4 mm. Maybe we'll see some adults over the coming months.

The orange flatworm, Vorticeros praedatorium, shows up on kelp fronds no larger than a finger-nail clipping. I believe the ones we see are about full-size, so I included this shot to give you a sense of scale. Directly below it is a tiny lion nudi, too small for a diver's naked eye. At either side of the photo are 2 more lion nudis, barely visible.

From the barge yesterday:

 

[drbill]

As usual, great pix, Merry. Loved the baby Melibe. Still hard for me to believe that is a flatworm (Vorticeros praedatorium) but I know you guys researched it

 

[TSandM]

I just want to thank you guys, once again, for sharing your photographs. They are always incredibly beautiful (and I'd love to have that last Flabellina photograph to frame) and often very educational, but they are also a fabulous inspiration for me to continue to plug away with the camera and try to learn to create art like this.

 

[Merry]

Thank you, Lynne.

What's the vis like where you dive? What's the best you get, and what's typical?

 

[TSandM]

Best we get is insane . . . most Falls, we get a couple of days of 70+ feet. We get goosebumps.

Average viz is in the 10 to 15 foot range. In the spring, we can have prolonged periods with less than that, and I often stay home.

 

[Merry]

Phil and I agree that around the peninsula, 40 ft. would be epic, and we may only get it a couple days out of the year. Our usual is 8 - 15 ft., but it can change one way or the other quickly. Sometimes, we'll do a second dive in the same spot only to find the vis has closed in. Worse yet, vis can differ according to location. So we often motor around, looking down the kelp for a likely spot, and wishing we had a crystal ball. In spring, we sometimes have < 5 ft. vis., resulting in bounced dives and great aggravation.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

There is a reason I shoot macro most dives.

 

[Peter_C]

Yeah, but Phil's 20ft is my 30ft of vis.

On the North Coast of Cali, in Sonoma County, we average 10ft, with 15 being a good day. 40ft is like WOW! Mendocino though often holds 35+ft. We have seen over 80ft even. Ross and I did a dive in Mendo that was epic for conditions and vis.

 

[TSandM]

I've dived at Lobos during a cold upwelling where we estimated the viz at 100 feet. It was like diving in Cozumel.

We NEVER get that kind of viz, but I have been in the water on rare occasions where we were clearly looking at 50 feet plus, just judging from what you could see at one time. Right now, we're having one of our late summer/fall periods between algae blooms, where the viz is consistently running 30 feet or so. It's just downright gorgeous in the water right now!

 

[drbill]

I remember back in the late 60s and 70s we'd see days of 80-100 ft visibility out here on the island. Not so much today although on occasion we reach that. If this is an El Nino year, we could hit it again since when water temperatures climb into the 70s for any length of time nutrients get depleted and plankton disappear.