In Reply to: Re: test post (ignore) posted by jlyle on July 24, 2005 at 17:17:01:

Saturday, my boat buddies went diving without me! That sounds like the starting sentence for a novel!

Instead, we attended a "quiceniera" celebration for the granddaughter of close friends, in the San Fernando Valley! It was 95 degrees, the freeways were clogged, and I would have much preferred to be in the water.

Sunday was thankfully free of family obligations! The Webbs, RogerC, and I met at the boat at 7:30 am. There was a full-flag of wind out of the West with wind chop and mixed swells from out of the West and South. We opted to try for the wreck of the Avalon.

The Avalon is the periodic home for large numbers and varieties of nudibranchs - I say periodic because they seem to come and go. For weeks, there are nudis everywhere, and then, nothing. I was the first to drop and I went down the anchor line. The thermocline hit like a brick wall at only ten feet down, dropping from sixty degrees on the surface to fifty degrees on the bottom. But, with the cold water came great visibility - about thirty feet or more, great for these waters.

Here are a few pictures from our two dives on the wreck.

(Oly C-5050/dual Ikelite strobes)

Spanish shawl (flabellina iodinea) and lightbulb tunicates (Clavelina huntsmani)

Blood star (Henricia leviuscula)

Scaleside piddock clams (Parapholis californica). These clams bore into the rock, exposing only the united siphons.

Ronquil (Ronquilius sp)

"Hairy" hermit crab (Pauristes ulreyi)

An exciting find, this is a previously undescribed Dendrodorid that is about to be named Dendrodoris behrens, after David Behrens, the author of the definitive book on Pacific Coast Nudibranchs.

Doripsilla albobunctata

Acanthodoris hudsoni. I love the long "rabbit ear" rhinophores.

Next week- Cozumel and warm water!