Found a GPO in one of the rock piles I put down on the south side a few years ago. As we proceeded down toward the bottle field I managed to startle a dogfish that apparently didn't realize I was there until I raised my camera to attempt a pic. I think the focus light got its attention, and in its haste to beat a retreat the damn thing thumped right into me. Never did get a picture.
A few moments later, Michael roused a giant skate ... maybe three feet across tip-to-tip. We swam with it for a couple minutes while I took pictures. I haven't seen one of those in years, and thought it would be the highlight of the dive. I was mistaken.
Proceeded down deeper. We both had doubles (me in my sidemount, and Michael in backmount) and were planning to go deep and stay long. Got down into the trough at about 100 feet, then started working our way back upslope. At around 80 feet, a sixgill shark made a slow pass just a couple feet in front of us. I'd been shooting a pic of a grunt sculpin, and barely had time to get my camera up, much less change settings, as it swam straight toward me. I took a quick shot and got the hell out of its way as it swam between the two of us. Then it turned around and made another pass. I hastily changed settings, pushed my strobes out as far as they'd go, and tried again. But of course I had on the wrong lens ... luckily it was the zoom and not the macro, so I was able to get at least a decent head shot. As I was photoing the shark, I noticed a lure being jigged a couple feet in front of my face. Apparently in chasing the shark we'd managed to swim up to where the fishermen on the dock could reach us (about 75 feet depth) and they were intentionally casting into our bubbles. So we had to quit following the shark and move away before something bad happened.
Following north at a depth of 80-85 feet, we made it to the carousel boat, and began following the rope upslope. I jigged off a bit to go check out the tires and found a bright orange juvi wolf eel. Stayed with it for a couple minutes (by now we were into deco), and then headed further upslope. Stopped by to visit with a decorated warbonnet at the north end of the sewer pipe, then slowly made our way back into the soup and upslope at the MAST. Altogether a 75-minute dive of pretty much non-stop cool stuff ... one of my better Redondo dives in a while.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
