Posted by Brad on January 06, 2002 at 20:58:09:
Took the good skiff back to the Island of the Blue Dolphins on Friday (HPOM). Went straight up the back side to the west end and found the vis to be only about 15ft, so i stayed in th skiff that afternoon and spent the night outside a nice cove. The night was wet and a little windy as i stayed outside in 50ft because of the swell. Saturday morning saw a little wind from the west and the swell was down a little, but the vis was still poor. I made my way around the west end and down the front side looking for some nice water. As i made my way back down around the east end, i found some 30+ft vis and some nice kelp.
Swimming in the kelp is an enchanting experience, you see things there that you will see nowhere else. Old fish for instance. I saw small blue rockfish grazing with blacksmith 2 feet below the surface under the canopy. There were mature kelp rockfish and olive rockfish in the shallows. I even saw what looked like juvinile olive rockfish about 3" long. I saw a few small black and yellow rockfish hiding deep in the crevasas as well as some lobsters...
Every overhang has something interesting to see and you never know what will be there until you take a look. Sheephead, opaleye, pile perch, calico bass, blue perch, black surf perch, cabazon, huge garibaldi, 3 or 4 varieties of actual rockfish. (imagine that!) As you cruise by the rocky surfaces, hundreds of little crustations withdraw into their shell slamming the shutter behind them as if to let you know they don't need you around.
Early in the afternoon Saturday, a strong current came up unexpectedly, so i kicked my way back to the good skiff and waited it out. The kelp was still down at sunset, so i enjoyed a very calm and dry night just outside an elephant rookery. The big males sound like a 1,000 pound bullfrog croaking all night. The sounds they make are at the very bottom of audible spectrum for humans, at times you can actually hear the croaking sound fragment as it skips along that threshold. I suspect that the low frequency sounds they make travel very far across the surface of the water and is able to draw females in from miles away.
This morning was still and warm as the sun lept off the horizon, the kelp was back on the surface so i got in a couple of hours before it was time to head back. Here is a picture of some lobsters that i took this morning. (at an undisclosed location :)
http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=10901
Left the island at 10:30 and rode the cusp of the next onshore flow all the way back to safe harbor yet one more time...
Brad
(loves San Nicolas Island)