Night Dive with the Hammerhead Dive Network – La Jolla Shores
Geared up with Kimo, Jovan, John, Tony, Anna, and Melissa. (And said HI to Heath who dropped by but couldn’t dive today :D) First off it was a LAKE at the Shores. Just beautiful topside and knee slappers. We got in the water probably a little after 8PM. We dropped around 27 feet and easily had 15-20 feet of viz. With the little bit of current we missed the wall and ended up on the long slope which we followed down to about 109 feet. Viz got worse in pockets but on average still had a decent 10-15 feet. We had a friendly and large sea lion hanging out with us for awhile around the 80-90 foot range. He pretty much gave Anna a high five. Not to rub it in, but it was pretty awesome! He kept swimming and weaving around us! Anna was amused that I understood her exactly at that point in the dark. Being the queen of underwater happy dances (and the interpreter of a certain someone’s underwater temper tantrums) I like to think I have skills in deciphering spastic expression and excitement at dark depths. HAHA The girls got separated from the boys around the 100 ft mark. We got distracted by the tons of baby octopus bouncing around! We cruised around for a bit and found lots of tiny life out and about. As we made our way back up the slope I kept finding baby halibut and other flat fish everywhere. Eyeballs popping out of the sand! Even a baby sarcastic fringehead! Towards the end of the dive we also came across two decent sized sheep crabs mating…. interesting….. 😀 All in all a great dive! And even better the after dive drinks and food at the La Jolla Brewhouse!
Max Depth: 109 feet
Temp: 50 degrees
Viz – 15-20 feet in the shallows, 10-15 at depth
Current: mild taking us north
Surge: none really
Bottom Time: 47 min
Eye Candy: octopus, sarcastic fringehead, swimming crabs, box crabs, southern kelp crab, sting ray, target shrimp, sea hare, staghorn sculpin, roughback sculpin, hermissenda crassicornis, cusk eel, flat fish, hailbut, globe crab, sheeps crabs, lizard fish, juvenile rock fish, moon snail and pipe fish
The Sheep Crabs I was “interrupting: 😀
What a multitude of different creatures there are and you know what so many of them are. Fascinating!