Trip Report - May 27, 06

As we were leaving the harbor, we met up with our friends and fellow chamber volunteers Dave & Dyanna. They had been camping out at Catalina the night before. US Coast Guard warnings of deteriorating weather conditions convinced them to head in.
No worries though, we talked them into going back out with us.

Dave & Dyanna took a few pictures of my boat for me.

Our first visit of the day was a very small wreck on San Pedro Shelf that regularly has Wolf Eels on it. I've been visiting this particular wreck for about a year and a half. On my first visit, I only found 1 Wolf Eel. They've been rarely observed by divers around LA, so I was happy to know where I could visit one within recreational limits. About a year ago, I noticed that a smaller Wolf Eel had moved in to the same hole as the big Wolf Eel. This trip I found yet another Wolf Eel making for a total of 3 on a wreck not much larger than an SUV! Another interesting note is that the smaller Wolf Eel has grown a lot. It's really neat to visit the same spots a couple of times a year and see the same creatures growing, finding mates, etc. It's easy to start to think of them as pets.

Our next dive was the FS Loop. The Loop is rarely visited by divers becuase the vis there is usually terrible. That said, when you can find your way around, it's a real treat because it is crawling with nudi's! Here are a few pictures that I took with my new Fuji E900 using the internal strobe only. External strobes would make a huge improvement, but I'm fairly impressed with what such an inexpensive setup can do. The 9 megapixels allows for heavy cropping and picks up much more detail than my old 3MP camera.

Doriospilla spaldingi mating	Tritona festiva about to mate	San Diego Dorid
I love the detail on this one.	These damn things retract their Rhinophores and gills every time!	I try not to manipulate the environment for photos, but I wish I would have moved this little piece of muck out of the way!

Conditions were rapidly deteriorating so we made a run for the harbor in search of Jeff Shaw's now famous nudibranch farm at the end of Cabrillo Marina dock. We all looked like a bunch of nuts laying down on the dock with our arms hanging in the water hollering "Hey, come look at this!" every time we found something new. My pics didn't turn out well because my digicam requires that one hold the button half-way to focus and then depress it the rest of the way to fire. I couldn't see the LCD screen so I never knew if I was focused or not. I should have put it in focus-all-the-time mode. This is generally discouraged because it goes through batteries faster, but would probably have produced better results.

There are literally hundreds of Melibe leonina on the kelp leaves.
There are also quite a few Janolus barbarensis and Triopha maculata hanging out with the lions.

We were even fortunate enough to find a Dendronotus frondosus!

You simply can't beat seeing 5 different species of relatively unusual nudibranchs while laying on a dock!

Although the conditions were a bit challenging, it was another great day of hanging out with good friends on the ocean.