In Reply to: Weird Experience posted by James on October 10, 2006 at 10:49:41:

I grew up in the South Bay area and frequently come back to visit and reminisce about my diving days at PV. I like to check out how things are going at Haggerty's/Malaga Cove and have noticed that the creek flowing into the ocean there seems to have a continuious flow now - even in the summer. Last time I saw it the flow was surprisingly high - a few cubic feet per second - and it hadn't rained in weeks. When I was a kid in the '70s, the creek was barely a trickle most of the time. Anyway, it seems like now when I view the ocean from the scenic overlook next to the Malaga Cove School there, the water at Haggerty's and Malaga Cove frequently seems to have a brownish color and the vis looks like it would be six inches at best. You look north towards Redondo and south towards Flat Rock Point, and you can see boundaries where the water turns much clearer. The creek flow is cause by all the overwatering of people's gardens and lawns in northwest PV. This flow contains various fertilizers/pet droppings/human spit/car oil and other nutrients/polutants (you get the picture). My theory is that this runoff is somehow fowling up the vis there at Haggarty's. Extrapolating from my theory, the "underwater fog" that you experienced at Rocky Point could have been cause by a surface current bringing this bad water down from Haggerty's.