8/13/2006 - A Fun Time Was Had By All

Date: August 13, 2006
Dive Location: Marineland
Buddy(ies): Merry, Penny, Scottfiji
Time: 10:03
Bottom Time: 1:12
Max Depth: 54'
Vis: 20-25'
Wave height: 0-1'
Temp at depth: 54F
Surface Temp: Not much warmer. The thermocline was shallow.
Comments: After a fairly easy entry at the Point, we dropped into shallow water to look for Hopkin's Rose nudis and anything else that was around. I didn't find one until the last half of the dive, but the dive itself was filled with so many sightings. Scott and Penny found a hole with a Cuthona divae nudi and a Cabezon in it. I looked around the hole and found another Cuthona divae and a Blue Ring-top snail. They had already swam away to find more critters before I could call them back, but Scott had just seen hundreds of ring-top snails at La Bufadora.
We spotted several tiny Coralline sculpins, various nudis, schools of Rock Wrasse, Jack mackeral, Blacksmith, Senoritas, lots of Cabezons and Rockfish plus two male Sheepheads. Among the nudibranchs spotted were two Mexichromis porterae, dozens of Monterey dorids and Sea Lemons, Facelina stearnsi, Acanthodoris lutea and Cadlina luteomarginata. I was getting cold so Merry and I cut across the sand and found our old friend, Mr. Mantis shrimp. She calls him Johnny Mantis for short. We'll have to go back with a cod fillet for him next time.
When we reached the parking lot, my truck had mysteriously vanished. I looked around and saw it behind the fence, filled with tumbleweeds and debris. Divebum Don, Shanon and Evil Jeff had guilty looks on their faces. They were lucky I didn't dive with an AK-47. :)

Sponges

Old ladder

Blue Ring-top Snail

Rainbow nudibranch eggs

Baby Sunflower Star

Coralline Sculpin

Black Rockfish

Copper Rockfish

Black Eyed Goby

Cuthona divae

Mexichromis porterae

Spanish Shawl

Yellow dorid

Monterey dorid

Stearn's aeolid

Hopkin's Rose

Hopkin's Rose with eggs and red hydroids for dinner.

Red hydroids
 

The following is Evil Jeff's post about the mischief regarding my truck.

Some mysterious thing happened at OML today.

There was a weird dust devil that seemed to plop stuff right on to Max Bottomtime's pickup truck...

Then it picked up the whole thing and set it down behind a fence...

We thought that this was so strange that we hid in the bushes fearing another twister...

Here comes the unsuspecting diver...

Who tears open the gate with freakish fury...

Who then calmly proceeds to doff his gear.

Some passing diver approached and was heard saying,
"Gee Mister, you sure take security serious if yall locks your truck behind this here gate.

~eJ