A Memorable Memorial Day

[MaxBottomtime]

It's been a long time since we had good visibility. It was poor on Saturday so we took Sunday off to do chores. I was expecting more of the same bad conditions today but was pleasantly surprised to find twenty-five feet visibility at Golf Ball Reef.
I shot a variety of critters today, from finfish to shellfish, from
snails to slugs. We had such a good dive that we remained there for a second helping.

Scott and Margaret Webb and Jim Lyle arrived to share in our good fortune

 

[bperc]

Very nice photos. Have you found out what laid the white eggs yet? What is the purple critter on the red gorgonian. It looks like a ghost sea hare.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Maripelta rotata, a purple algae. I find them on deep wrecks, but have been spotting them on shallow sites like Golf Ball and Hermosa Artificial Reef as well. I still haven't found the source of the tiny eggs, but we found several more.

 

[fnfalman]

What is the white thing with the orange lips?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

It's a Velutinid, or caenogastropod snail.[FONT=times new roman, times, serif] I'm not sure which end has the lips. [/FONT]

 

[drbill]

Maripelta rotata, a purple algae. I find them on deep wrecks, but have been spotting them on shallow sites like Golf Ball and Hermosa Artificial Reef as well. I still haven't found the source of the tiny eggs, but we found several more.

Interesting. I've only seen Maripelta on very deep dives here (> 150 fsw) but our water temperatures are warmer and visibility better. Using the pigments that it does suggests it is a deep water alga that doesn't do well when competing with others under greater intensity light environments.

Nice shot of the Pyrosoma too. My column this week is about them.

 

[bperc]

I saw this picture posted by Patrick on diver.net. Could this be the source of the white eggs in your photo too? http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m226/SUBARCH/untitledshoot-5260330_zpsb1c80f8a.jpg

 

[MaxBottomtime]

That's a Kellet's whelk. Their eggs look more like Chiclets gum. The ones I posted Saturday are about 1/4 the size of whelk eggs and are pointed and clear.

 

[drbill]

Actually the "eggs" one sees from the Kellet's whelk are egg cases... there may be up to 1,200 eggs in each one. See last week's column about these whelks and their mating orgies

 

[fnfalman]

One of the things I like the most about Phil's and others' photos is that if I were to find something super interesting, I'd make a mission to go find it for myself. For example, I am going to try to find that orange lip snail thingie the next time I go out.