1/21/2007 - Wild Kingdom

I wanted to get a picture of Merry next to her sister Amy's statue that I placed under water last month. The ocean had other plans. We dropped down in the right neighborhood but the statues and pinnacle were eluding us today. We still had an enjoyable dive. We saw a Batray in the sand, two Sunflower stars, four Hopkin's Rose nudibranchs and another nudi, a Cadlina flavomaculata. In nearly 1300 dives it was only the third one I've found.

  As we slowly made our way back to the cove we came across the usual friends we see nearly every dive there. The San Diego dorids are really munching away on the large Finger sponges. Cadlina limbaughorum nudis were everywhere. We found several pairs of Acanthodoris lutea tailing each other.

The lot at Marineland is nearly completely demolished. We will lose access to the site soon, but it will be bigger and better when construction is finished. Plans include restrooms and showers at the beach, a public pool and wheelchair access to the cove. Schlepping gear should be easier.