Posted by Maciek on November 11, 2001 at 02:05:16:
On Saturday, 5 pm ocean was literally flat. We could see rainy clouds on a horizon, but at Redondo Pier water was lazily ploping on the sand. We geared up and get our lights ready and walked the stairs. Unknown diver, who just got out of the water complained about "low visibility". Kinda discouraging, but we went in anyway. Straight from the stairs, all the way out. "Low vis" turned out to be exceptional when I could still see the bottom at 25 feet. We dropped down there and followed offshore direction into the canyon. We run into the big white pile of squid eggs almost immediately. And another. And another. And another. I counted 7. No squids tough. None. Nada. Not even a tentacle. Closest find, I could clasify as squid, was a lil octopus, caught in the open, shifting quickly through all possible colors. All squid egg piles were between 65 and 75 deep. We turned left and continued south with depth 70 for 15-20 minutes. Vis was exceptional 25+. No squids. Some flatfish, one sheeps crab, plenty of smal l crabs, seapens, one rubber boot, couple of coke cans and one emerald colored something shaped just right to be a chewing gum, just 100 times too big.
We made a turn and proceeded back and shallower slowly going out of the canyon. Vis was still great. We levelled at 35 and continued very slowly northeast towards exit. No surge, no silt. Crystal clear. There was a whole bunch of shovelnose guitarfishes as well as torpedo rays sitting there in the sand. Big, medium, small... I never really saw that part of Redondo with visibility better than 3 feet, so we explored and explored and explored with all air available. We finally surfaced from 12 feet of water, and it was still crystal clear. I could barely feel the surge. Conditions were just magic.
Apart from NOT seeing a SINGLE squid, dive was great. If anyone wants to see them, don't go when we did :). Go later.
I'm going to reapat that dive on Monday. No doubt. It was just too good.
Maciek