La Jolla Shores night dive 11/08/14 - sharks and rays!

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thez_yo

Contributor
Messages
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Location
San Diego
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100 - 199
After a few weekends out due to rough conditions, my buddy and I finally got back in! We planned on hitting the shores along the wall, and got geared up at ~5:30pm because of the time change. We probably hit the water around 6pm or 6:30pm, and kicked out to just short of the buoy in about 20' water. The dive was a balmy 66 degrees F, 54 mins long and I hit a max depth of 60fsw with 33fsw being the average.

This time, because my light was so blindingly terribly bright last time, I fashioned some covers for my light. The layers include a milk carton jug cut up to fit over the light to diffuse the bright spot, and then I decided I wanted some sort of red filter too. I walked around a bunch of stores until a friend suggested a party supply store. I was hoping for a clear plastic cup, but no such luck. I was going to leave all disappointed until I decided to give the whole store a go, and found a small little clear red plastic tambourine! So, the solid side of a cheap plastic tambourine was layer two of my filters, and Saturday night was the test flight.


So here's what we saw on the dive!
A crab doing the 'go away' dance.
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Right as I'm dropping down off the edge of the wall, surprise Sarcastic Fringehead waiting for me!
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But I find some interesting things just up the wall again..
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This 'stick' is actually a tiny thin little pipefish. Tail is towards the right.
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One that's all beige (target shrimp)
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Baby horn shark just hanging out
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And here's that big one. My buddy's light is white, but shows up blue/green. Mine's got that red tambourine over it and is the dim one in the foreground.
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I saw at least 3 good sized lobster just running around in the open at the top of the wall.
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So here's a target shrimp with the blue on the tail and the spots on the sides.
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And here's a shrimp with just red on its tail. (Apparently a mantis shrimp!) A little bit of my light 'filter/dimmer' on the bottom left there.
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Some fish were hanging out at the point.
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And anemonies
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Sand coloured fish on sand..
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Another Sarcastic Fringehead out in the open again
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And our exit!
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Last edited:
Oh, is it all of them?
 
I think you might be happy with just the milk jug diffuser for night dives. I use the caps from the kids meal chocolate milk from Chick-Fil-A.
 
Haha! Nice!

Yeah I'll peel off the red thing next time and see if that helps? But having a red light really helps not scare the critters away. Instead of fleeing for dear life due to the light, it just goes to regular swim-away during the daytime amounts of scampering, or swimming, away.
 
Oh nice, thanks!

Uhh.. Im a bit of an ID idiot... the stripey guys who aren't rays? Guitarfish or skate?
 

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