12/4/2005 - Great Day To Be At Marineland

I made a dive last night in Redondo Canyon and had miserable conditions. My buddy Jeff and I fought through heavy surf just to find two feet vis on the bottom. Today made up for that dive. I met up with my friends from DiveVets.com for the best conditions I've seen in awhile at Marineland. Visibility was better than thirty feet, which is outstanding for a beach dive in Palos Verdes. I found the usual assortment of nudibranchs, including two Hopkin's Rose nudis on the first rock I dropped down near.

Other nudis included Hermissenda crassicornis, Acanthodoris lutea, Diaulula sandiegensis, Triopha catalinae and a couple I'm not sure about yet.

Octopus were moving along the reef during the day, which is out of the ordinary. So is having a Lingcod follow you around, but that happened today as well.

Conditions above water were spectacular as well. We had the typical December SoCal day that the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce always gets for the Tournament of Roses Parade. It was so nice today that some people were making a student film about girls in  bikinis along the cliffs. I'm not sure what curriculum these students were involved in, but there was no nudity involved. We waited to make sure.

I hope I'm not making my desert-dwelling friends envious, but today was nothing short of spectacular. I should have brought more tanks with me.