In Reply to: test posted by jlyle on July 10, 2005 at 20:38:04:

On Friday, we had big surf on the West-facing beaches here in Southern California. The wave model and weather forecasts for Saturday didn't look too promising, so we didn't take the boat out. It turned out that the forecasters didn't do a very good job and the six-to-eight foot swell was more like three-to five.

We met at the boat early on Sunday and made a smooth run to, what is becoming a favorite dive site, Buchannan's Reef - near the Old Marineland of the Pacific site. While the surface conditions were okay, visbility at depth left a lot to be desired - about ten-feet max. with lots of particulate matter. The water was a little warmer than it has been - low fifties.

Given the poor visibility, once again I concentrated on macro. Here are a few images:

[Olympus c5050/PT-015 with dual DS-125 strobes, Inon macro lens adapter]

Peltodoris nobilis nudibranch

The common Spanish Shawl (Flabellina iodinea). There are so many of these colorful nudibranchs in our water that we've stopped taking pictures of them!

Island kelpfish (Alloclinus hoderi[/i}). I just love fish that let pose for me. This little guy was about two-inches long.

Tritona festiva!!!!! I've been looking for these nudibranchs for years, without success. They feed on the red gorgonia and should be easy to spot, but I could never find any. On the second dive, I found the mother lode of festivas. They were everywhere.

This Festiva has a friend. Can you spot the hitchhiker?

It's a juvenile scaleworm. This is the second time we've found these worms on nudibranchs. It may be coincidence or some sort of commensal realtionship. Not likely to be parasitism as the worms are moving and not attached to the host.

The end.

• Re: Re: test jlyle 08:17:18 07/18/05 (0)