Catalina Pics From Today :-)

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pwfletcher

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Scuba Instructor
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Location
Ventura, CA
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I'm a Fish!
Here are a few pics from this afternoon on Catalina. Anyone know the yellow thing is??? I found him crawling along the bottom all by himself at 165'.


coral.jpg

Purple Coral at Farnsworth Banks

rayface.jpg

Pacific Electric Ray

yellow.jpg

Yellow Thingy

me.jpg
 
Thanks for sharing those - they are really nice. I wish I could help you with the yellow thingy! Perhaps Dr Bill can?

sapphire :)
 
The yellow thingy is a dorid nudibranch, possibly Anisodoris nobilis which can be found to depths of 750 feet and feeds largely on sponges. What was its approximate length? The deep water forms may reach about 8" in length. It doesn't look exactly like some of the ones I've seen in shallower water.

You're lucky you didn't get zapped by the electric ray if you were that close. When I was working with the Cousteau's on the Channel Islands documentary in 1985, one of the divers got zapped by one and was out of the water for a bit.

Dr. Bill
 
The nudibranch was about 6 inches long. I hadn't seen one like that before.

As for the Electric Ray ... lol ... I didn't know that it was an Electric Ray until I got back on the boat and looked it up in the book. STUPID. I'm glad that I didn't get zapped :)
 
I've been able to get "up close and personal" with a related species, the bullseye electric ray, in the Gulf of California. Knowing the possibilities, I approached them very slowly and used smooth body and camera movements to avoid scaring it. I can't remember if Clay (the Cousteau diver) had tried to touch it when he got zapped.

How was the vis at Farnsworth?

Dr. Bill
 
Well, I was on a rebreather, so my approach was nice and silent. Maybe that is why he didn't get spooked.

The viz at Fransworth was about 20' from the surface to 80' (plankton bloom still in effect) and was 50'+ below 80'. It was quite nice actually.

Even Black Rock was about 30' in the afternoon where the big boys were getting ready for the upcoming rodeo:

lobster.jpg
 

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