Date: February 4, 2005
Dive Location: Redondo Canyon
Time: 5:40 PM
Bottom Time: 53 minutes
Max Depth: 90 fsw
Vis: 20 feet, until the last 5 minutes of the dive...then 2-8 feet
Wave height: 1 foot
Temp at depth: 55
Surface Temp: 61
Tide information: about 2 hours before 3.3 high tide
Comments:It was a beautiful spring-like night for diving the canyon: Perfect sunset into streaks of pink, orange, and red clouds beneath a blue canopy sky. "Finally Friday", and Carlos and I were off terra firma and back to the real wet-world. Dropped down into twilight water at 25 fsw just in time to see a 5 inch long swimming crab marching by carrying the nibbled remains of a 9 inch fish. Must have been the last of the big seduction dinner, because from then on it was crabby date-night...and almost everyone had a "serious date"...the only crabs walking around alone were the kids! Guess this explains why there are so many kids.... Even the dungeness crabs were in the mood. So, with decapod romance as the general background theme, we were off to the 85 foot contour line heading south toward PV. There were three darling little horn sharks, four so-ugly-they're-cute sarcastic fringeheads (One seemed to like me rubbing the top of his head, but I'm leaving the chin rubs to Scottfiji...those chomping mouths look BIG!) We found a very old octopus, probably trying to lie low on it's last night of life: It was dark red, 10-12 inches when swimming, missing a couple of tentacle tips, and moved very stiffly and slowly. It actually looked "arthritic" and old. It swam around our hands stiffly and we quickly let it settle back onto the broken kelp-holdfast we found it on. Sweet-dreams, old fella. Then we found three of the smallest octopi I've seen, very lithe and quick to ink as they jetted away, then settling on open sand, curling up arms and trying to be invisible. Several juvenile cusk eels disappearing tail-first into holes, ...romantic crabs "parked" in debris....three long spine combfish with spines down- but they quickly raised them when touched lightly; many scorpion fish; 4-inch midshipman burrowing horizontally into the mud; ...all those dating crabs.... AND THEN A 3 1/2 FOOT HORN SHARK! After all the micro stuff this guy looked humongous, just sitting on the bottom like the gorilla in the toddler playground! It moved after a while, circled, and slid right down into the mud under my light. I moved and it lifted off, circled,....and slid right down into the mud under me. I moved....and it leaped up and bumped me firmly, then turned off...turned back...and slammed into me before finally sashaying off into the depths. Guess my stealth-camo wetsuit is working! We were working step-wise up the contour lines, keeping RBT at 7 minutes, getting up to about 50 fsw, when somebody turned off the viz: From 20 feet to 5 feet in one ugly moment....and then it got really bad. Couldn't even see the crabs-dancing-the-tango-with-limbs-entwined. I expected sea-lions or some other biggish thing squirming around...but nothing....or, at least nothing visible. We set a heading back for the beach, but couldn't even make out the bottom (covered with amorous crabs and scorpion fish...separately...species lines were respected) until our lights hit it. Finally surrendered, safety stopped in dark fog at 20 fsw, and surfaced to a sky full of stars and PV looking like a lit-up Christmas tree. The wind in the parking lot had a soft warm feel to it, but hot-chocolate was served as soon as gear was stowed and dry clothes donned. What a beautiful night to get to go diving! Thanks, Carlos, for sharing in all the fun! Is there anything in the world as magical as diving??
'Til next time.
Claudette
