La Jolla Shores, Fri July 4, 2008
So we met on V street at 5am, okay a little earlier than that, and the street was already crowded with folks unloading their cars and moving on. The 15 min parking did not deter us from parking on Vallecitos due to the fact it is only enforced 11am to 5pm they just haven’t posted the signs yet!!
Low tide, 1 ft surf, glassy calm surface conditions, and sunrise clouds gracing the sky made for an easy and enjoyable entry and kick out. We dropped into 50ish feet of water and began exploring. Not sure how we ended up so far north considering where we started but we eventually came upon the 50ft contour and then continued south towards the Point.
Little Octos, Sculpins of all colors and shapes, juvie Vermillion Rockfish, schools of Perch, Senoritas, big Sheephead and Brown Rockfish, the nudi formerly known as Frondosis with eggs, Hermissendas, Porostomes, SD Dorids, the Sea Hares are looking a little tired from all the mating frenzy, Yellowfin Fringehead, Cuthonas with eggs, and the tiniest Doto Amyra I’ve ever seen.
As we were exploring a large wall on the Point I was looking over to Terry to show him a Yellowfin Fringehead being very frisky and brave popping out of his hole in the wall, in the corner of my eye something in the water, oh my gosh, big huge long Fried Egg Jellyfish. I started pointing up and beyond Terry and he caught sight of it. I’ve not seen one this big, bigger than a dinner plate and the stingers were at least 4-5 feet long trailing behind. We hovered with it as it slowly was making its way west, and Terry just snapped away trying to get pics.
It was time to turn in so we did. Not much on the swim in, we stayed about 10-20 feet off the bottom for most of the swim in hoping to catch sight of Bat Rays but didn’t spot any. Tons of kids swimming greeted up when we popped our heads out of the water, actually, I think we startled one of them.
Thanks for coming out early on your day off to beat the crowds and get a great dive in. Wish I had thought about bringing another tank so we could have done a second dive.
Kim
Map to Dive Site at SeaStarAdventures.com
Viz: 20′+ in canyon – 6′ shallow
Temp: 52
Surf: 1′ -2′
Tags: la jolla, La Jolla canyon, san diego, scuba diving, seastar adventures, shore dives
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