Monterey Diving
Jun 15th, 2009 by derek
I finally got a hold of some cold water diving gear, and went with a hockey buddy of mine (thanks Igor!) to Monterey Bay to do some diving. We took it easy and just went to the breakwater at San Carlos Beach right near Cannery Row. We ended up doing three dives throughout the day, where we saw crab, seabass, lingcods, a leopard shark, and amazingly a diving cormorant underwater at about 50′ deep (see video). This was at the Metridium fields about 100 yards off the shore. Water temperature was around 54 degrees down to about 45 feet where there was a thermocline which dropped the temperature to the upper 40s. Thank goodness for the thick wetsuit!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DApZJtNE_P4[/youtube]
On the surface, there were the usual sea lions and sea otters. Overall it was very good diving, visibility around 20′ to 25′ and very calm.
Crab and Lingcod:
Metridium (nice wallpaper):
Kudos to the person that identifies this:
Kelp:
Hey Derek!
Thing is a one of the Family Nudibranchia ( Sub Family: Dendronothina) by the name of Dendronotus iris.
You are welcome.
Right you are, thanks! By the way, who would’ve thought that there was a sea slug forum dedicated to identifying these types of creatures: http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=dendiris