6/20/2009 - Mist Again

Date: 06/20/2009

Time In: 9:49am

Dive Location: San Diego, California

Dive Site: La Jolla Shores

Viz: 5-10' in the shallows, 15-20'+ deeper

Water Temp: 61-63°f at 75fsw, 68°f @ surface!(SUUNTO)

Max Depth: 75'

Bottom time: 63 min.

Buddies: Rob C

Lelaina and I loaded up the car with dive gear and bbq stuff and headed to La Jolla. The plan was for Rob and I to get a couple dives in and Lelaina to enjoy the San Diego sunshine (???????). Leaving the windshield wipers on intermittent was an unwelcomed accompanyment to the ride down the I-5.

We arrived and setup our beach area, in hopes that this was just June gloom and not another mis-calculation by the local weather people. Rob and I suited up and entered right in front of the main lifeguard tower. The seas were flat with an occasional 3' roller, the chop from last weekend was thankfully gone.

We descended into about 23fsw, headed west to 30', then took a left turn until we hit about 65'. Along the way we came across an area with at least 10 Hermissenda crassicornis, Horned Nudibranch. We watched them criss-cross each others paths, climb twigs, and just munch away.

At about 65fsw, we hit a small wall and took a right turn. The wall was covered with Fringehead, blennies, piddock, and other sand-wall natives. I saw a small bat ray cruise by below us, so I followed slowly for about 15' and stopped. Within 10 seconds a huge plume of sand dust was coming towards me - either the small bat ray warned others of intruders, or there was some serious sand hunting up ahead. Rob joined me and saw one large bat ray cruise above the wall. A few feet into the cloud, and we saw another large ray scooping up the sand in search of breakfast.

We explored a little deeper before our personal decompression cop (Rob's Suunto) gave us a nudge and we headed upslope. At about 45', I noticed an eye sticking above a mound in the sand. I signaled Rob and we circled around to see what kind of flattie was hiding in the sand. As I got closer I realized it was a large halibut. We continued in and surfaced in about 12fsw, we were still about 50yards north of the lifeguard tower, so we kicked south-east to avoid the surfers and larger sets.

As we were on our dive, the weather had deteriorated a bit. It was still drizzling and the wind had picked. Lelaina had tolerated enough of the less than ideal beach conditions, so we packed up and called it a day. A great day for diving apart from missing our goal again (secret gardens), but the bbq will have to wait until next time!