Gods Rock, Mon April 28, 2008
With warm Santa Ana winds blowing, we had to take the boat out yesterday… Clear, hot, calm… even with cold water it was a must do, but hey the SI would be warm, and it was…
We made two dives off of La Jolla. The first was at God’s Rock. It is a rock that rests on the 40 to 70 drop off just north of the kelp bed outside of Boomer’s beach. The top of
the rock is 55′ deep. The vis was unbelievably good, probably 40+.
Several weird things about yesterday… As we traveled up from Mission Bay the water did not look very clear and from Bird Rock North I ran into some amazingly ugly water. There was a red tide that was so dark brown and dense that I was afraid that there would be no diving at all. The vis in the red tide was no more than a foot. As I wandered around I
discovered that it was quite patchy but that most of the area was inundated with the red tide. Once I got north of the kelp off of Boomer’s than it turned a hazy green. Since the rock popped up on the depth finder so pronounced I decided to dive the spot regardless of the vis. In the water the vis was less than 5′. However once I got down to 15′ the world opened up. I could easily see the bottom and the rock and much of the surrounding area. In short it was a very fun dive (albeit it was cold 46 degrees). I filmed a big lingcod who was more than happy to show off. Anyway it was fun.
Now after an hour we began to surface and this is when I discovered that the red tide had shifted and now was right above me. I performed my safety stop below the layer but when I came up that last 10 feet the vis went to zero.
If the red tide and good vis was the first and second weird things of the day than the third was the unbelievably warm water that I found myself in while on the surface. A look at my dive computer showed the temp to be 69.5 degrees (verified by my boat’s surface temperature gauge as well as by my bare hand)! Now the warmest temp that I saw traveling up from Mission Bay was 59.5. My guess was that the dark brown water of the red tide was absorbing the warmth of the Santa Ana. The warmth only extended into the water maybe 18″ but it was certainly nice to allow that surface water penetrate my wetsuit and offer a quick warm up.
We got in the boat still chilled, however it only took a few minutes before I was warmed up and ready to go again. Gotta love those Santa Anas… Hot, no wind, no swell, 40+’ vis.
The second dive was on a shallow reef and there were many lobsters, I can’t wait for lobster season! I probably saw 20 legal lobsters, a Sheephead that was easily 35 lbs with many others in the 20’s. In general the spot was loaded with life. It is a reef that comes up to 25′ and is surrounded in 40′ water. Shallow is a good thing and that gave me an hour of bottom time on that spot. Armed with only a camera I enjoyed snapping pics as fast as I could including pics of the large Sheephead.
The second spot was surrounded by kelp and while there was some surge, the vis was still a respectable 20′+.
Motoring back we passed through several more patches of red tide and temp would go up once I was in it and then drop dramatically once out of it. The darker or more dense the red tide, the warmer the water. I never realize that the red tide was able to capture heat so efficiently. Again it must be the dark brown color working as a solar panel.
A few good pics, nice warm, calm day, life was good…
Map to Dive Site at SeaStarAdventures.com
Surf: 2-3 ft
Current: very little
Visibility: 15 - 20 ft average (40 ft best)
Temp: 69 surface / 46 F at max depth
Tags: la jolla, seastar adventures, san diego, scuba diving, boat dives
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.