SeaDana: Diving adventure at Old Marineland

Today, Bryan and I went for a morning dive down at the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The swell report had been only 1-2 feet for the past couple of days (which is good for diving, not so good for surfing), and a small rainstorm is supposed to roll into southern CA tonight… so we needed to get out for a dive while conditions were optimal. Because it's a weekday, we had the dive site at Old Marineland to ourselves, which is surprising because it's a very popular site with local divers. Old Marineland is a place on the Palos Verdes Bluffs that once had a marine theme park— like Sea World. It actually was the oldest theme park in California! Years ago it was bought and shut down, and now divers are able to access the ocean and experience marine life first-hand from where large aquariums once stood. The access down to the water is a little workout since parking is way up on the bluffs. After we parked and geared up, we had to carry all our gear on a path down the bluff to get to the ocean. It's a rocky beach, so we had to be careful with our footing, but once we were in conditions looked great and we were ready for a rockin' dive…

After descending, this was the scene we were greeted with…

Lush kelp forests and schools of fish- senoritas, garibaldis, barred sand bass, etc. This was looking to be a fun dive! Here are more pictures from the dive:

Garbaldi saying "hello"!

Bat Star and Urchin in foreground… the "wild blue yonder" in the background

A 6-armed Bat Star in waves of sand

An "urchin barren" where urchins have become so overpopulated that no kelp can survive (this is what happens when we lose carnivores like sea otters in the food chain)