10/22/2006 - Marineland Platform Is Back In Business

Ross-O, or Rob Odorover according to the person on the other end of a radio conversation took Elaine, Merry and me to the long lost Marineland platform this morning. It's been over a year since it disappeared. Gary Fabian and Ray Arntz re-discovered it this week. I thought it had been swept away by the storms last Winter until today. There is a new, very long net on it. I believe it was dragged 900 feet from its old location by a fishing boat. The wooden deck was gone but the nudibranchs were still there. It now sits upright in a little over 80 feet. I'll try to tie a line to it so any beach divers with a ton of patience and leg strength can visit.
For our second dive we hit Hawthorne Reef. There is a ton of life there. I found a MacFarland's chromodorid that was very cooperative, although several Honeycomb rockfish kept getting in the way. Vis was not great and it was a bit chilly at 60F but it was another wonderful day under the surface.