Cindy and I had the opportunity to dive Catalina this past weekend. We went over Friday morning on our friend’s boat and immediately cranked off a quick dive in the park. Conditions were so-so with 10-15 foot vis, 62 degrees on the bottom and lots of sediment in the water. The dive produced the usual suspects and was pretty low key until we found an octopus that was doing some bottom strolling. It was amazing to just hover along and watch the nearly instantaneous changes in color and skin texture as he moved across different bottom terrain. As he moved across one of the RR wheel anchors, he perfectly matched the color and texture of the rusted iron. The next day we dove Whites hoping we could get a bit of protection from the rather stiff SE winds. Visibility was again poor with lots of sediment, but some of the locals – horn shark, giant kelpfish and bat rays – were around to make it an interesting dive. Sunday we linked up with another dive buddy and ran west to the Twin Rocks area. This was the jackpot for the weekend. The visibility was marginally better – a milky 20 feet or so, but the Giant Sea Bass were home! Key word being GIANT! These were some of the largest Sea Bass I’ve ever seen with several over 6 feet in length and probably pushing 400 pounds. For two long dives they played hide and seek with us. Amazing face-to-face encounters in the kelp with multiple-fish fly-bys occurring every few minutes made it a weekend dive event to remember. Patrick
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 04:57:10 +0000
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