Last weekend we dived after two days of rain and had blue water. Today we pushed our luck after two more rainy days and paid for it. The water at the Redondo Beach artificial reef was dark, gloomy and gave us just enough surge to make photography even more difficult. I only took nineteen images during the dive and should have stopped taking them sooner. The only fun I had on this dive was finding a green paddle worm, possibly Phyllodoce novaehollandiae.

I couldn't find the snail that I saw last week. I wanted to get a shot of its shell for Paul Kanner. I took an obligatory shot of the yellow fringehead that Merry found and searched for anything photo-worthy. I looked up and found what would have made a nice photo in better visibility, but I couldn't fit the four foot Mola Mola in the frame with my macro setup. It was within arm's reach and turned vertically to be cleaned. When it finally noticed me it flew away like a rocket.

We moved to Honeymoon Cove for our next dive, but visibility was closing in while we sat out our surface interval. I suggested Hawthorne Reef instead. I hoped for better visibility offshore, but it was more of the same.

I took a picture of a dime sized orange cup coral and moved on. Back on the surface, Kevin said he saw the cup corals spawning. My one photo looks like it is full of eggs. I probably missed a great shot by a minute or so.

We might try to dive again tomorrow, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Who knows? Maybe December will give us great conditions like October and most of November did.