La Jolla Shores, Sun June 8, 2008
Highlights: Staying warm (2nd drysuit dive), lots of nudis (my first Stearns’ Aeolids (Austraeolis stearnsi), yellow dorid, san diego dorid, spanish shawl), baby octo, sarcastic fringehead.
Pics at:
http://sfmphotog.com/gallery/5123296_rhWQc#309473182_CGWV2
I’ve been dry for 2 weeks, so I wanted to get out today, regardless of the conditions and give my drysuit another go. I’m glad I did. We swam out from Vallecitos, where the waves were a little smaller (and less wave rider traffic). We dropped down into about 40-50 ft of water, with poor vis and headed down and south. Bat rays and a couple of other divers soon made it worse. We dropped down deeper and turned back to the north, where the vis got better. I was afraid we were going to go the whole dive with no nudis, and then Terry spotted a spanish shawl. Near the shawl were 3 x Stearns’ Aeolids, at about 60 ft. I stayed with them a while (probably too long), since these were the first aeolids I’ve seen.
After swimming to catch up with Terry, we came upon the nudi jackpot, with lots of dorids and porostomes all over the place. There I found the juvenile octopus (ID?), hiding in a crevice. It stood out as mostly white and didn’t look like it quite knew how to camouflage itself yet. I soon noticed that I was approaching my no-deco limit (at about 60 ft) and then noticed that I had less than 1000 psi on my steel 100 ft^3. That’s what happens when the cold doesn’t end the dive early and there are lots of photographic subjects. We quickly started heading back in and I ended up doing a blue (green) water ascent and safety stop. I exited with 500 psi and easily timed the swells on exit. Next time I’ll have to pay a little better attention and turn around sooner.
Time in: 8:07 am
Time under: 59 min
Max depth: 86 ft
Min temp: ~50 F at depth
Vis: ~5 ft in the shallows, ~10ft below 60 ft (w/ thermocline)
Waves: 2-3 ft, easily managed with patience
Tags: la jolla, La Jolla canyon, san diego, scuba diving, seastar adventures, shore dives
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