12/19/2009 - Dirty Day In The Bay

Merry and I joined Captains Andy and Patrick aboard the Moby Kate for a few dives in Santa Monica Bay this morning. We've been spoiled all year by great visibility and unusual large fish encounters, but today was more like the way I remember the bay. We had limited visibility on the outfall pipe and elevated pipe, and hardly any visibility at all on the Star of Scotland. Still, it was a great day to be diving the bay. Andy and Patrick limited on lobster on their first dive, while Merry and I found two Trapania velox nudibranchs on the elevated pipe.
The weather couldn't have been nicer, the boat didn't break down and Andy didn't have to make any boat launch rescues, so this day goes in the Wonderful category.
Merry got a couple of nice crab shots.

I had trouble getting the camera to focus in the low vis, but I managed to get a few decent photos. I even managed to find an octopus living in an old scallop shell. I'd better call the BBC.