Posted by Maciek on August 26, 2001 at 15:29:52:
Sunday morning. Haze. 8 am. Sandeaters gather for their traditional Sunday dive. This week's pick: Escondido.
For those of you who don't know, Escondido is small spot in Malibu, just off the PCH about 4 miles east from point Dume. There's a small creek joining the Pacific waters there, sandy beach, easy access. There's no amenities, but there is a bus stop. No use for it yet.
There was six of Sandeaters. They decided to split into 3 teams. All were focused. Determined to see those leopard sharks, reco free divers reported swarming.
Surf was low. Temp was 67F. Pelicans were abundant. Guano was slowly sinking three boats floating at some distance. Dolphins choosed to hunt for some bait fish. We could see their fins. We swam mere 30 yards to the kelp edge and submerged.
We hit bottom (ahem.. floated just above it) at 24 feet. We headed south to discover that it doesn't get any deeper. We finally settled around 27 feet and cruised west. Kelp was a bit sparse, vis about 10-15 feet. And of course no leopard sharks. We found shark egg. Let's say we can count it for half of a shark.
Further west kelp was growing in patches. Sandy bottom everywhere else. We saw some nice seafans colonies, some urchins, one medium sized sheepshead, two kelp bass, one sea cucumber. No leopard sharks.
Water was a little surgy, but visibility luckily didn't suffer much from that. On our way back we found big halibut. Pacific by the looks of it. 30-35 inches length easilly. While we were debating if to draw our shiny knives and get ourselves a dinner, flathead stirred the sand and floated away.
Under a rock we spotted an octopus. It was dutifully wrestling with remains of small crab. We tied to pry the crab out, but octo was very determined not to loose it's lunch this day. Couple of sheep's crabs crawled around, some small, look-through fishies were swarming constantly at the bottom, occasional green anemones also passed before our masks. Dolphins were there, squeaking around us, but unfortunately they didn't feel like showing. Air run low, we surfaced and crawled with dignity back onto a beach.
Maciek