I try to promote local diving with my dive reports. I am fortunate to live near an invertebrate mecca like Palos Verdes. There is more marine life to see here than most places I have dived in California. Unfortunately we can't always see it. Yesterday was one of the best days I have seen in recent memory. Thirty feet visibility on the Redondo Barge is the second best conditions I can remember there.

I took my wide angle lens out of mothballs and set out for the wall at Merry's Reef. The variety of rock fish, sponges and anemones there make it a great wide angle site. It was not to be. Under the blue surface water was a cloud of suspended sand everywhere. Shooting wide angle in such conditions causes a dilemma. If I move my strobes out I can avoid backscatter, but I can't get enough light on the subject through the dirty water. I compromised and got fair to poor results.

We dropped on the crane off Haggerty's next and found conditions to be worse. Algae has completely taken over the area. We anchored ten feet away and had to search for the crane. The only highlight was a large school of barracuda that circled us for an hour.

We sweated in drysuits in the 66° water. Someone must have moved the ocean from Laguna Beach to P.V.

• Black croaker?? Brad 07:16:16 08/28/15 (1)
  • Re: Black croaker?? Max Bottomtime 09:32:27 08/28/15 (0)
• Re: Here's The Problem... Patrick 21:06:41 08/27/15 (0)