Vet's Dive, or Nothing to See Here

[MaxBottomtime]

Where did you dive today, and what's with all the sand scatter in your photos?
I dived at Vet's, and...I dived at Vet's.

I haven't made a beach dive at Vet's since I got my camera rig. It's a heavy camera in a thick aluminum housing with two heavy strobe batteries and a heavy diopter for good measure. I was concerned about getting rolled in the surf, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. I only got knocked down on my knees but got up quickly. No harm, no foul.

I dived the area where the Salad Bowl once was. There wasn't much left of it. I couldn't find a single nudibranch, shrimp or squid. I almost aborted the dive after twenty minutes but realized it would mean filling a tank and washing sand out of my gear for nothing. I stuck it out for well over an hour. I finally found a few photo subjects here and there. I saw some movement on a turban snail's shell. It was a small red octopus who was more than willing to let me fire off a few shots.

Sea star wasting continues

Obligatory crab shots

Get off my back! I'm sleeping here!

Sea cucumber vacuum cleaner

Lewis' Moon snail

 

[CheddarChick]

Cool...All with the diopter? Love the Octopus...

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I ended up not using the diopter. There were none of the tiny critters that used to live there. I wonder if the "beach enhancement" covered everything up.

 

[orangelion03]

The third photo of the octopus is very good. I like the way he's showing off his arms. Like the baby horny pics too! How big was he? about 2"?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Just about two inches. I found one at Marineland once that was the size of my thumbnail. The small ones really like to pose for me.

 

[fnfalman]

Those octopus lazy eyes remind me of lazy cat eyes for some reasons.

 

[thez_yo]

Oh wow, love the one with its arms curled up. And cute shark! I haven't seen any of those in months here.. maybe I have to hit the cove again.

 

[TSandM]

I love little reds -- I think they are often far more amusing and photogenic than our big guys.

I am very, very sorry to hear about Vet's. I did my first Southern California dive there, back in about 2006, and I remember being amazed repeatedly throughout the dive by the amount and diversity of life we saw. I have heard from a lot of people that the "replenishment" project trashed the site, but one would hope it would come back. We have a similar site at our Redondo Beach, which was devastated by a huge storm several years ago, but within about six months, it was visibly recovering. Of course, in that case, the sediments weren't changed.