Anacapa Island with Malibu Divers

on the Peace

July 3, 2005

Story and Photos © Elaine Jobin. May not be reproduced in part or in whole without advanced written permission.

On Sunday July 3, 2005 I went on the Malibu Divers trip aboard the Peace to Anacapa Island. I arrived at the boat on Saturday night and went out to dinner at the Chicago Rib Company with some of my friends Kathryn, Chris, Bob, and Carol.

We had a calm, and fairly quiet, night of sleep at the dock. The Peace departed for Anacapa Island at 7am. On route, at least for a while, we were escorted by a pod of dolphins. Our arrival at Anacapa was greeted by a gentle mist and overcast skies. It was a pleasant change for me. When I had left home the day before it had been 100 uncomfortable degrees..

Our first dive was at Rat Rock on the western end of Anacapa Island. A large pink jelly caught and kept most of my attention. I had not seen one like it before. It was about 18 inches in thick body part length and trailed long white tentacles. After seeing so many Fried Egg Jellies over the previous months it was refreshing to find a jelly that wasn't yellow.

The second photo with the surface reflection also has a Pacific Butterfish (Peprilus simillimus) in it. It is the little bright speck under the oral arms. OK, you can't see him very well. I did a maximum detail cropped scan, and, adjusted the image every way that I could to make the butterfish more visible. The result of this effort is in the inset below. OK, this is stretching a large photo of a very small fish to the max. A good photo of a butterfish will have to be a future project. Thanks to everyone on the BBS who helped to ID the this pink jelly as a Chrysaora achlyos.

Also on this dive, Jamie Siler (who used to work at Catalina Scuba Luv) saw, and photographed, a free swimming pipe fish while he was ascending on the stern anchor line. The shy pipefish kept a distance of at least 5 feet from his camera. This is a photo of Jamie and the photo of the pipefish that he was kind enough to e-mail me.

Our next stop was at Cathedral Gardens. These are a few of my photos.

After the second dive we took a lunch break. I noticed that this holiday weekend had brought out a lot of divers and their significant others.

The first afternoon dip was at Landing Cove. The water here was green and chunky. I did a long swim to a cave. The cave was big and very dark. My flashlight was small and dim. I went a few yards inside before I decided that I wasn't equipped for exploring this new territory. I made a U-turn and headed back to the boat. Along the way I saw some of my trip mates.

As the day moved on, the hot tub became an increasingly popular place to spend surface intervals.

Our last dive was at Fishbowl. One of the special finds here was a very small white nudibranch, a Dendrodoris species 3. According to Michael Miller at the Sea Slug Site this nudibranch is in the process of receiving a name. My photo of this nudibranch is on the left below and Chris's photo is on the right. Chris's photo will be featured on the Sea Slug Site this coming week.

With four dives completed we began our journey back to Ventrua.

We enjoyed some of Trish's great peach cobbler en route. I was also treated to one of the best "funny face" photos ever.

Another great dive day was over. Instead of heading home several of us stayed on the boat to spend another day diving on the 4th of July. A trip report from day two is coming, I'm just waiting on some Kodachrome 25 to be processed.

Until next time..........