Barbary Coast Divers
p4
Stillwater and Hopkin's Reef, Monterey - by Dan Schwartz
I met up with Roy, Pete, Nick Carol and Curt at Stillwater Cove, along with a new cold-water diver, Remco, a friend of mine.
Curt and Carol went off to one side of the washrocks, while Pete and Roy went to the Southern end. Remco and I went to the southern end and I was headed for the chasms in between the pinnacles. Remco is an avid diver, but not in cold water. His logged over 100 dives when he lived in Curacao. He froze. But he enjoyed it. I think there is an upwilling at the cove because yeah it was colder than the next dive we did in the Bay proper. We didn't see any big ling or any mammals like I was hoping for, but it was a nice dive. He'd never diven in a kelp bed so he was amped up.
After we loaded up the vehicle and headed for Hopkin's reef, which is next to the aquarium. We kayaked out past some otters and seals and dropped near the end of the inner reef.
Sponge
The first reef had kelp and we headed out for the 2nd reef across a sandy area that had some borrowing anemones, a Spanish Dancer or two.
sunflower seastar
anemone
At the outer reef we ran into metridiums and a Harbor Seal. I was coming around a big pinnacle while he (he was big and fat) did an abrupt u-turn and headed back. Remco got to see him later in the dive. It was his 1st California mammal underwater sighting.
white plumed anemone Metridium
farcimen
We headed back for the boats and I Was photographing this thing I saw and ran short on air getting back to the boat. Climbing over kelp with a camera, weight belt, tank (you get the picture) really sucked. Any way here is the picture. What it is, is kombu kelp broken at the fronds with urn sponges, and I still can't make out the orange things. The sponge I thought was squid eggs, but it didn't look quite right , or a tunicate, but why the hole? Oh, it's a sponge. Now it made sense.
salad
See you in the water.
updated 7/26/05