Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary

[opisthobranch]

In October, 2013, Bay Area Underwater Explorers (BAUE Home Page), in collaboration with NOAA, mounted a weeklong dive expedition to Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary off of the dive boat Escapade.

We visited Craine's Point and the Northern East and Northern West Ridges. The water was so thick with fish that they limited the visibility. The structure was completely covered by a variety of colorful sponges and anemones, and dotted with smaller fish including many young rosy and yelloweye rockfish.

The expedition would not have been possible without the support of NOAA, the Bodega Bay Marine Laboratory, Any Water Sports, and the crew of the Escapade.

Here are some images from the expedition. It was an amazing privilege to dive such a healthy, beautiful and unspoiled reef.

Cordell Bank Expedition 2013

Clinton

 

[Fish&beer]

Clinton Congrats! you are one of the fortunate few to have the pleasure to dive at Cordell Banks. It surely is a magical place. I was one of the original divers to explore CB back in the late 70's -early 80's. Back then we made dives just on air using twin 72's or 80's and didn't have all the safety equipment available today. Many times we dove to 200+ feet to take marine life, bottom samples, take photos & 16mm film footage. I have fond memories of being part of the early expeditions at such a special place in the sea. Once again you are one of the privilege ones to dive and explore there. BTW have you seen the CB exhibit at the Oakland Museum, it is well done.

Jerry

 

[Fundive123]

Amazing photos! I Never knew about the sanctuary until now. Going to go read up on it now haha. Thank you for sharing!

 

[UWPhotoKeith]

Cordell is an amazing place! Glad to see BAUE getting out there and bringing back some recent images! It looks better than ever! I joined Cordell Expeditions in time for the Pt. Sur trips & Farallon's in the late 80's but missed out on diving Cordell Bank. Noon Day Rock was as close as I could get and what I saw there was amazing and can only imagine that Cordell was every bit as beautiful. BAUE's photos prove that and then some! Jerry, good to hear you are still a fish!

Keith

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Beautiful photos.
When you were there did you notice any signs of past fishing. Like a lot of line or nets, anything like that.
I know Cordell Banks was raped for years by all the party boats and commercial fishing.
I'm so glad they finally closed it down.

I went out there once with NOAA to do a sealife count. There was no diving, we ran transect lines and counted birds and any other sea life.
In one trip we saw blue whales, gray whales, a pod of orcas, numerous birds, some smaller porpoises, a big block of foam that probably drifted over from Asia (which we picked up).
This was back when they had a 36' twin diesel boat they ran out of Bodega Bay. I was in charge of maintenance and retrofits on the vessel as a civilian contractor, so they took me out there.
We can thank the former Bush administration for defunding the Bodega program.

I would love to dive that some day.
I would have to brush up on my tech training.

 

[opisthobranch]

Beautiful photos.
When you were there did you notice any signs of past fishing. Like a lot of line or nets, anything like that.
I know Cordell Banks was raped for years by all the party boats and commercial fishing.
I'm so glad they finally closed it down.

Hi Eric,

Not much in the way of direct evidence of fishing. Maybe 1 or 2 small lures and a very small amount of line. No nets that we saw. I have to think the lack of adult Yelloweyes is a by-product of past fishing as they are very slow growing. Not many big fish of other species either. Otherwise it looked healthy and the schools of widow rockfish were amazing.

Clinton

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I forgot to mention also, when we were out there we would run accross a fishing boat hauling butt to get out of there when they saw us coming with our NOAA insignia all over the boat. They thought they were being busted.
Damn poachers!
There's always a handfull of A-holes that have no respect for the law.

 

[Fundive123]

Getting off topic, but It's amazing the length and amount of effort some poachers will go through just to collect game. You can hear some crazy stories about poachers when talking with a game warden. Once heard about an incident where a poacher had fabricated a compartment in a vehicle's rear seats behind a child's carseat, where illegal sturgeon were hidden to be transported.