12/20/2008 - 3 Hours of Lake Laguna

Date: 12/20/2008

Time in: 1:44pm

Dive Location: Laguna Beach, California

Dive Sites: Shaw's Cove / Heisler Park

Viz: 15'+

Water Temp: 59°f (Suunto)

Max Depth: 24'/27'

Bottom time: 86 min. / 86 min.

Buddies: Rob C.

Headed to Laguna today in hopes that the post storm conditions had subsided. Not only had any sign of run-off disappeared, but I was greeted by a Lake Laguna! As I pulled up to wide open parking (it pays to sleep in and wait for high tide!) I chose the spot right across from the stairs. Apparently everyone was out Christmas shopping. Fine by me! Rob C. pulled up moments later and we were soon geared up and walking down the stairs. Shaws was flat. Glass. Ankle slappers and probably the least amount of surge I've seen this year. We headed toward the Crevice, stopping to notice the trails of hundreds (if not thousands) of cone snails in the sand.

The plan was to work our way through the crevice, and possibly turn back and do it again, or circle around the reef. The Viz was awesome. We could see that there was no white-out in the crevice, looking through the archway from 10-15' away! I spent a lot of time looking up and down the vertical walls, getting in nooks that are usually impossible to stay in given normal viz and surge, assuming you can even see them. As we passed through the archway, surge picked up some, but was still very minimal. All of the usual suspects weere there, including tons of Garibaldi

and Hopkins Rose', and if you look closely enough at the yellow sulfur sponge and don't go cross-eyed in the process, of course a Tylodina fungina.

The swim-thru that heads north (aka star wars canyon) looked like an absolute aquarium, but we decided to stay in the crevice proper. Right before the crevice starts to narrow before the crossroads, I notice a Porter's chromodorid.

And then another, and another and another.

And another about 3' away. Five Porters! Wow! I tried my best to get a shot of all of them, but it just wasn't possible.

Another nudi find, making me really wish I had chose to go macro today instead of just using my flat port, was the smallest Aegires albopunctatus I've seen.

After 86 minutes we surfaced from a final depth of 4' (still minimal surge) and headed up the stairs. What a dive!

Our next stop was Heisler. We haven't dove here since the major renovation that was done over the last year. The bad news was that parking is $2/hr. The good news is, they take MasterCard. What is this world coming to? Again we quickly worked through the pre-dive formalities and hurried down the steps, knowing that we would be surfacing at dusk, if not later. Before we entered, we noticed that the new shower at the bottom of the ramp was placed right in the middle of the sand as opposed to on the ramp as it was before. What?

Viz was a bit less at Heisler, but we still had an incredible dive. I started finding many many black dorids, but they were all too small to photograph as I was not really set up for macro today (no diopter on the video camera.) The larger critters were of course easier to get a few pics and footage of, including several Spanish Shawl and Cowrie's.

I then happened on a Laguna first, a Janolus barbarensis.

I have seen these little nudi's in Catalina before - and really didn't expect to come across them in Laguna. Shortly after that, I started experencing technical diffulties with my video lights, but we continued on for another 86 minute dive. I forgot how awesome the reef can be at Heisler. Tons of lobster (including a super-grandaddy), sheephead, octopus and the list goes on...

If you've got your holiday shopping done, or you just need a little break from the madness (and don't we all) - then don't pass up these conditions!

On a final note, if you haven't finished your holiday shopping yet and you have a photog or video-nut on your list - Bart (Mike@Saltwaterphoto.com) has you covered. I just took delivery of my Cozy - and I know it will get a lot of use in the years ahead!