The west island wall can be a challenge to find sometimes even in the best of circumstances. Luck smiled on us and to my surprise, I felt my fin hit something hard as we dropped. Great luck! And the viz was actually fairly decent, about 15 feet or so once we reached the wall at 45 feet.
West Wall has an interesting assortment of nudibranchs, due to the combination of sandy mud meeting the short rocky wall. Its always been a great place to find Pink Tritonia Tritonia diomedea and we found over a dozen like this fellow.
![Image](http://www.hershmanphoto.com/Underwater-Photography/New-Underwater-Photos/i-2b8Cxtw/0/M/_DSC0754-M.jpg)
There were countless tiny Flabellina trilineata as well, along the upper rocks of the wall. These tiny guys drive you crazy because you just can't resist trying to get good sharp photos of something as small as a grain of rice.
![Image](http://www.hershmanphoto.com/Underwater-Photography/New-Underwater-Photos/i-KLx57nN/0/M/_DSC0718-M.jpg)
![Image](http://www.hershmanphoto.com/Underwater-Photography/New-Underwater-Photos/i-jCNN9bB/0/M/_DSC0648-M.jpg)
I was just down in Monterey CA a couple of weeks ago and saw some of these as well. In California the trilineata show orange-tipped rhinopores , whereas here in Puget Sound they are always white. Here's one from Monterey
![Image](http://www.hershmanphoto.com/Underwater-Photography/Marine-Life-of-the-Pacific/Three-lined-Nudibranch/i-jNDqZBN/0/M/_DSC0560-M.jpg)
We've been seeing Janolus fuscus more frequently this spring than we have in several years, and we weren't disappointed here either. Janolus f. are one of the most lovely nudibranchs around here to photograph.
![Image](http://www.hershmanphoto.com/Underwater-Photography/New-Underwater-Photos/i-DMnJGfz/0/M/_DSC0656-M.jpg)
I'm not used to paying much attention to Sea Cucumbers Parastichopus californicus, but I saw this fellow extruding something that looked likes eggs, but after looking up its reproductive behavior I found that they can extrude these filaments from their body to 'confuse predators'. Weird looking though.
![Image](http://www.hershmanphoto.com/Underwater-Photography/New-Underwater-Photos/i-s9krZFT/0/M/_DSC0760-M.jpg)
A fun dive overall.
Dan