Here's a brief description of Reef Check: It's a "volunteer, ocean conservation organization designed to save coral reefs globally and temperate reefs in California. Reef Check is active in over 82 countries and territories throughout the world." While we were in Jamaica, we also volunteered with Reef Check (doing surveys in Portland Bight, Negril, and Drunken Man's Cay outside Kingston) but the field methods are pretty different than they are in California. Last April we were among 15 other divers as the first trained Reef Check California volunteers.
At different sites around the California coast and the Channel Islands, we do underwater research assessing the health of the fish, invertebrates, seaweed, and substrate. We collect data at each site twice a year, which shows the health and change over time of California's rocky reef ecosystem. We really love volunteering with this organization! ... now, back to yesterday...
After leaving the dock, we headed out to Hopkin's State Marine Reserve, which is near the Monterey Bay Aquarium (in my profile pic, you can see the aquarium in the background). First off, there were otters everywhere! I've never dove around sea otters, so I was very excited!!
We geared up and hit the chilly 51-degree water. Quite a temperature difference from the 76-degree water of Catalina Island we dove a couple weeks ago! We started to descend, but due to my "camping cold" I couldn't get my ears to equalize past 15 feet depth... I've never had a problem equalizing, so we surfaced and I decided to try descending again. This time, my ears popped and equalized! I was so glad I wouldn't have to call the dive off, after driving so far to do it! I took the descent extra slow, equalizing every few feet, and reached the bottom at about 50 ft. depth.
We took out our transect lines, and Bryan and I began our fish transect. The fish life in Monterey is extremely different than just a couple hundred miles down the coast- there's no garibaldi or sheephead (very common fish in southern CA), but there are tons of different species of rockfish-- black, blue, kelp, black and yellow, gopher... rockfish in southern CA are pretty rare to find (they're overfished), so it was quite a treat to see them. Since we were in a reserve, all the fish were very large, too, typically measuring 25-30 centimeters long. We also saw some Kelp Greenlings, a very unique-looking fish that you don't see in southern CA.
Our second survey was of invertebrates; unlike southern CA, I didn't see any lobster, urchins, or sea cucumbers-- but I did see huge sunflower stars, gumboot chitons, and tons of anemones, including a huge anemone called a "fish-eating anemone"! We finished 5 surveys during this dive, and ascended after about an hour.
After a brief surface interval on the boat drinking hot tea, we headed back in to complete 5 more surveys. During this dive, we were getting our fins tangled in the giant kelp pretty often, so when Bryan turned around to "untangle" his fin, he was surprised to be staring in the face of a harbor seal! The harbor seal kept biting his fin! Crazy! Also, at the surface above us, sea otters were lounging on their backs in the kelp. Since the seal was hanging around us on this dive, our fish count surveys didn't show too many fish, but we were still able to complete the 5 transects. Our last dive was a bit shallower, at around 25 feet, so we had to deal with surge, but we got the remaining transects done.
My "camping cold" hit me pretty bad :-( after we finished diving. So, now I'm a bit sick- but I at least I was able to get some diving in before the cold hit me hard-core! We finished off our time in Monterey by grabbing some clam chowder and sourdough in Fisherman's Wharf. Although we did a lot of driving this weekend, the dives in Monterey were worth it! Plus, we were able to help out a great organization.
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