Redondo 8/19

[YellowEye]

Hi
DLH and I went diving at redondo last night. We spent 50 minutes at >90 feet looking for a shark, but didn't see any. We also ran into several other dive teams (including Grateful diver), none of them found a shark either. Oh well, great dive anyway.

Sorry I didn't get any pictures, as I was having strobe problems. However, I thought I'd share some of what we saw, because it was pretty cool. Viz was great too!

There were tons of small octos out. Probably one every 10 or 20 feet depending on depth. I even saw a pair mating! The male jumped the female, held her down, and occasionally convulsed for a minute or so before letting her go!

Other highlights were all the small sailfin sculpins about, probably saw about 4-5 of those. Really cool looking.

Also, we saw two Lion's Mane nuidbranchs. I don't know if those are common at redondo, but they're not common to me. Both were found on the broad brown kelp between 45 and 25 feet.

Total dive time=100 minutes. Dave may have gotten some pictures.

-Eric

[Tom Nic]

Great report!

[Dusty2]

Thanks Eric, I don't think Hooded nudibranchs are at all common that far south in the sound. They have large blooms of them in the northern sound and hood canal but I can't remember ever seeing one at Redondo. They are an eel grass critter not usually seen at that depth.

[Grateful Diver]

Hooded nudis are actually common at Redondo ... in early to mid fall ... in the eel grass ...



... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[dlh]

The stealthy six gills skunked us again, but we had a really great dive anyway! Really good visibility last night, with 20+ feet at least most of the time. As Yelloweye described, it was Octo-pa-luza time with at least 20 little fist size guys out in the open. I only saw one monster Octo under one of the rowboats. My personal highlights were several little 1-2 inch Sailfin sculpin babys, and pissed off little GPO that got nipped by a Rockfish.

Here are a few of my photo highlights. You can see the full set right here.

[Yelloweye trying to smooch a little Octo]


[The PO’ed GPO]


[Full sized Sailfin Sulpin]


[Tiny Sailfin Sculpin]


[Hooded Nudibranch aka Lions Mane]


[Stubby Squid to wrap things up]

[YellowEye]

Great photos Dave!

And great photo GratefulDiver, and thanks for the info!

[Dusty2]

Hooded nudis are actually common at Redondo ... in early to mid fall ... in the eel grass ...



... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Probably why I never see them there. The only time I have done the eel grass is with you in Dec looking for lumpies!