June 2020

Learn about the underwater photography featured in June of the Underwater Paparazzi 2020 calendar!

Moving down the Pacific coast, these next images are from the beautiful Channel Islands in California!

Its amazing to see just how large the giant sea bass are! It’s always a surprise when something thats bigger than you swims in to check you out! My dive buddy and I had a real treat with this guy! It stuck around for 30 minutes swimming circles around us and weaving through the kelp around us! It probably would have been longer, but there was that whole issue of surfacing with enough air in our tanks thing. 😀 The maximum reported length of these beasts is 7.5 feet and 557 pounds!! This image was taken off Santa Barbara Island, one of the eight islands apart of the Channel Islands.

I seriously could just sit and watch kelp for hours. We are so lucky it has bounced back after the kelp die off we had. It’s still not as thick as it once was but its awesome to see it starting to flourish again!

These awesome sea fans are such a cool addition to the kelp seascapes! The branches of gorgonians are composed of thousands of tiny polyps, each an individual animal which secretes calcium to form the larger colonial sea fan. The golden gorgonian is just one variety of many colors we have here. These gorgonians can grow 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide!

The blacksmith fish are a common species we find in the kelp. The kelp and rocky reefs provide them protection from predators. They are a beautiful blue and black color and really adds to the kelp seascape! They are buddies with the senorita fish who help nibble away the parasites on the bodies of the blacksmith.

The 2020 Underwater Paparazzi Calendar is still available! Proceeds go to a great cause!  Buy your new calendar here !

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