Just got back from a night dive in Redondo Beach-- awesome dive!! We'd been diving there before, but the visibility and conditions were SO much better this time. Since it was a shore dive, it was quite a workout, but once we descended to about 50 feet the work was worth it! It's so neat to dive at night because you get to see all the nocturnal animals...it's a completely different world. If you cover your light, it's absolute darkness-- the only darkness comparable would be middle-of-a-cave-dark. I used to be pretty afraid of the dark (ok, I still am a little)-- just about the only thing I'm afraid of, but night diving doesn't bother me at all!! In fact, it's pretty soothing and serene. The only bad part of the dive was when, all of a sudden, the water went from 51 degrees to 65, the water turned reddish-orange in color, and visibility was so bad that we couldn't even see our gauges!!...red tide...uggh...It was weird how it was just in a certain area, but it allowed us to swim away, back into the better part of Redondo canyon.
On the positive side, we spotted 6 different red octopuses throughout the dive, one giant sunflower sea star, 4 juvenile horn sharks, California halibut, dozens of small hermissendas (a pretty sea slug, see picture at bottom) a few white sea pens, a variety of sea snail species, a pipefish, a spotted cusk-eel burying itself tail-first into the sand, skeleton shrimp, a California scorpionfish, and it was crab city!! We saw big red rock crabs, yellow crabs, decorator crabs, and hermit crabs galore! I think at night the ocean has crab parties or something ... Anyway, very cool dive! Next weekend I'll be on a live-aboard research dive boat for 3 days with Reef Check around Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands...
(I love these little sea slugs!)
On the positive side, we spotted 6 different red octopuses throughout the dive, one giant sunflower sea star, 4 juvenile horn sharks, California halibut, dozens of small hermissendas (a pretty sea slug, see picture at bottom) a few white sea pens, a variety of sea snail species, a pipefish, a spotted cusk-eel burying itself tail-first into the sand, skeleton shrimp, a California scorpionfish, and it was crab city!! We saw big red rock crabs, yellow crabs, decorator crabs, and hermit crabs galore! I think at night the ocean has crab parties or something ... Anyway, very cool dive! Next weekend I'll be on a live-aboard research dive boat for 3 days with Reef Check around Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands...
(I love these little sea slugs!)
