3/1/2009 - Ignoring Doctor's Orders...

After stepping on an eneven rock during my exit yesterday at Marineland, I decided to forego any diving until my foot healed a bit more. Merry and I drove over to Redondo Beach this morning to look at the ocean and immediately ran back home to grab our gear. It was the flattest we had seen it this year.
Our goal was to look for any squid eggs and check out the new Salad Bowl created by the big waves of last month. As soon as we reached seventy feet we began finding single egg capsules here and there. We did manage to find one cluster of eggs, all with little red eyes looking back at us. The Salad Bowl is a huge mass of algae covering the sand. It was alive today. Hermissenda crassicornis, Flabellina pricei and Anisdoris nobilis nudibranchs crawled along the algae, seeking out groceries. A lone juvenile horn shark was camera shy, but the one guy who REALLY hated getting his picture taken was a Sarcastic fringehead who attacked my camera and bit my finger.
Water was 55F with good visibility at about fifteen feet.