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Perhaps it's because Phil and I depend on marine life for lively adventures, that I get such a kick out of discovering what lives in the small area under our boat. Although there is some seasonality with the appearance of species that live in such a sheltered habitat, I find that encounters are...

Last Monday, we made another trip on the Giant Stride to Farnsworth Bank. Such a unique site that never fails to deliver! This trip, Captain Jim Simmerman dropped us within a few feet of the famous Yellow Wall, which is formed by an expansive colony of Given's yellow zoanthids blanketing the...

Last Sunday, we joined Phil Colla, Kevin Lee, Dana Rodda and Nannette and Bill Van Antwerp on the Giant Stride for what we thought would be your typical dives at Farnsworth. Ha! We were in for a truly mind-blowing experience. Our first clue should have been when Captain Jim Simmerman said the...

Phil and GSB 445 at Spongehenge A new anemone for us (ID pending) at Spongehenge Torrance Reef, two-spot octopus Large, scary California scorpionfish Little Reef Was interrupted before I could see the disc and column, but it's probably Urticina mcpeaki Cabezon at Golf...

It had been 6 months since we dove Hermosa Artificial Reef to take ID shots for Milton Love's study. Plus we needed a chance to look for Mike Couffer's fish, GSB462. Visibility is so iffy at Hermosa at certain times of the year, that using a drop camera to assess the vis has saved us more than...

July 10 on the Giant Stride, we joined Phil Colla, Jamie Leslie-Feldman, Marla Matin and Kevin Lee for a beautiful day of diving for kelp on Catalina Island. Jim Simmerman and Jeff Reeb captained with Emma Eunoia crew. Eagle Rock Jamie-Leslie Feldman, Marla Matin and Phil Colla Phil and...

Phil and I hadn't dove the barge in quite awhile. We purposely went last Thursday so I could spend some time futzing around with my wide angle set-up. With every visit over the years, there are larger holes on top and more of the walls have peeled away. I didn't think to document more of its...

In lockstep with a primordial urge, hundreds of Gould’s bubble snails emerged from the silt in King Harbor and congregated on clumps of decaying algae. They were intent on a single purpose - to stir up the old gene pool and ensure the next generation of Gould’s bubble snails. We estimate that...

Over the last few dock dives, I've been keeping my eye on a couple pair of bay blennies, Hypsoblennius gentilis. This truly exciting little fish exhibits sexual dimorphism and can even change color to match its surroundings. One male and female (~4.5 - 5 inches) like to hang out on a vertical...

Yesterday under the dock, I had one of those "Woo-hoo" moments. At the time, I didn't recognize it as any opisthobranch that we're familiar with and neither did Phil. Dave Behrens kindly ID'd it as Stiliger fuscovittatus, the brown-streaked sapsucker. This is my first sacoglossid and Phil was...

Phil and I expected yuck vis and plenty of surge, but NO! Twenty-five feet vis at the bottom with a gentle, current-driven parade of thousands of pyrosomes. Of course, neither of us brought a WA lens. Caprellid amphipod on a pyrosome. Pyrosoma atlanticum, a colonial tunicate A lone...

Although conditions have been pretty much relegated Phil and I to diving under the dock, something cool pops up about half the time. This juvenile sand bass (4-5") didn't look quite the same as the other sand bass that I was shooting. Until I looked in Milton Love's book, I didn't realize that...

Until yesterday, I hadn't paid much attention to our ubiquitous blackeye goby, Rhinogobiops nicholsii. One in particular was behaving atypically. It was swimming back and forth in short bursts a foot or more above the bottom. It would repeatedly venture out briefly, then return to its rocky...

A few pics from our latest dives. From Catalina island, here's a new-to-us nudi, Fabellina pricei (some investigators have reclassified this as Apata pricei, but the jury is still out). Egg mass of Flabellina pricei Feeding on hydroids Orangethroat pikeblenny,Chaenopsis...

I was thinking that as 2020 hobbles to a close, the one thing that we as divers still have, is the ocean. Even if we grumble about the vis, or the wind, at least we have a place to go where there is no new-normal and our thoughts are occupied only with seeing what new things we can find. Here...

**STATEMENT OF RETRACTION** I wish to thank the knowledgeable divers who brought to my attention an important oversight in my collection request. As a recreational diver, you CANNOT collect invertebrates without an authorized permit. As a scientific diver and PhD student at a museum, I am...

Phil and I have been photographing and collecting this tiny amphipod for a grad student. Your help would be appreciated. Here's Brittany's story. "Hello Everyone! As a scientific diver, I am hoping to tap into your wealth of knowledge as local dive naturalists. I am looking for rare...

Something I've never seen before - blacksmiths congregating along the bottom, underneath the piling where giant sea bass like to court. There was a bit of current running.

But wait, there’s more! Dr. Jeff Goddard kindly contributed many of his opisthobranch eggs to our collection, increasing the number of identified species to 94, ranging from British Columbia to Northern Baja. Opisthobranch egg masses come in a tremendous variety of shapes and colors, which...

But wait, there’s more! Dr. Jeff Goddard kindly contributed many of his opisthobranch eggs to our collection, increasing the number of identified species to 94, ranging from British Columbia to Northern Baja. Opisthobranch egg masses come in a tremendous variety of shapes and colors, which...