Any sighting of these unearthly looking fish is a rare treat, but to find mola mola cleaning stations on 3 consecutive dives is remarkable. Within a week, we saw them on the Redondo Barge, the PV Underwater Arch, and the crane off Haggerty's. Could this be an annual occurrence?

At Haggerty's Crane yesterday, I counted 6 mola molas of approximately 16 inches. They were much less skittish than the others previously encountered.

On Sat., we encountered almost every sea state we could imagine, from getting trounced on the way to the fuel dock to flat calm later in the day at the Underwater Arch.

The surface vis was miraculous at the Underwater Arch - from deck, we could see the scales on schooling fish and it was darn nice at depth. There was certainly no shortage of widely different photo subjects. After a nice 1 1/2 hour dive, I saw several mola molas being cleaned by half-moons right behind the boat.

Another surprise was this adult giant kelpfish, Heterostichus rostratus.

Before we dropped Phil found a 2-inch comb jelly, Beroe forskalli, at the surface. I chased after this nimble, predatory, spiral-swimming little thing, mesmerized by its shimmering comb rows.

The wide end is the mouth, which contains macrocilia used to chomp on or engulf other jellies. Some can be seen in this photo.

Besides Chromodoris macfarlandi and Berthella californica, the Arch holds Phil's coveted nudi, Dendrodoris behrensi.

Many different species of sponge and tunicate can be found at the Arch. We need to showcase more representatives from there.

Gray tunicate.

Gray puffball sponge