Bob's Birthday Boat

Photo by Robert Lee

Saturday was Rob's birthday, so we went on the Cypress Sea Big Sur trip to celebrate. The sea conditions were not stellar, but the ride down was mostly fine. Until we got down there. Beto and Rob had some sites (including Los Piedras Wall) they wanted to go to on the north of Point Sur, and then Phil came up with an alternative which he claimed was somewhat similar. We got to Phil's site, and then he spun around the site a few times, making me want to barf. He decided it wasn't diveable. We continued on to Los Piedras Wall, and took a few spins around it (at which point, I slid off of the bench and laid on the deck, trying not to barf), and Phil decided that it too was undiveable, so we would have to go south of Point Sur. Once we got going, I felt a lot better.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We ended up at a new (I think) site in the vicinity of Portholes, which had two peaks next to each other, coming up to about 50 feet and going down to 100-ish. The water looked pretty green when we hopped in. As we headed down the line, we encountered an egg yolk jelly which we swam over to take a look at. The anchor was laying a little ways off from the pinnacles, so we swam in the direction of the pinnacles and picked a direction to go (right, but I have no idea what cardinal direction that corresponds to). We slowly worked our way around the pinnacle, with Rob shooting wide-angle and Clinton shooting macro. The viz was probably around 40 feet, but there was a lot of particulate, and it was green. The highlight of the dive, for me, was finding a Cadlina limbaughorum. Rob and I have seen this slug once at Lobos, and I think Clinton had also seen it exactly once, at Lobos. I knew neither of them had a good picture, so I was glad at least one of

Photo by Robert Lee

them was shooting macro! When I pointed it out to each of them, they each looked at it like they didn't know why I was pointing out some boring Cadlina to them, and then it suddenly hit them what they were looking at. I have been wondering if we'd ever see another one around here. But I think they are common in SoCal, so I guess it's not that surprising that we would see it in Big Sur. Aside from that, I saw a lot of cute little sculpins, tons of trilineatas, and several Aegeris. Rob pointed out a treefish hanging out in a crack, and there were oodles of copper (I think) rockfish. The reef had a lot of neat little crevices and overhangs, that were good for fish to hide in.

Photo by Robert Lee

When it was time to head back, we swam back around the pinnacle, it was impossible to see where the anchor/line were, so we decided to just ascend along a piece of kelp, instead of searching for the line. During the ascent, we poke around at the kelp leaves, looking for nudibranchs and such. There were a bunch of Corambe, and I have a feeling there was something else cool that Clinton got some shots of, but I no longer remember what it was. When we got to the surface, the boat was not too far away. During the briefing, Phil had told me that he had lowered the swimstep a few inches (the last time I was on the boat, I spent the ride back complaining to Phil about the swimstep :P). It was WAY easier to board -- I could actually pull myself completely up on it without a tug on my manifold. 97 feet, 64 minutes, 48 degrees

Photo by Robert Lee

We motored further south, because a lot of us wanted to go to Compost. We noticed that the water was a gross shade of brown, but then it suddenly cleared up -- you could literally see a line from the surface where it went from brown to greenish-blue. Right around there, we also passed a pod of Risso dolphins. We got to Compost, where the water was a bit clearer and bluer than the previous dive. We started at poking around on the boulders on the bottom just off of the pinnacle. I was swimming around, not really even looking for slugs when I noticed a Eubranchus on a hydroid. After pointing it out to Clinton, I realized they were everywhere and he was almost certainly already looking at them :) I also found one of the yellow slugs which we thought was Aldisa sanguinea, so I pointed it out to Clinton. Afterwards, he agreed that that's what it was, so I guess that solves that mystery. Eventually we headed back to the pinnacle, and started swimming around it clockwise. Rob found a cool little jelly (or piece of a salp chain maybe?) off of the pinnacle, and I swam over to take a look. Eventually Clinton joined us to take some pictures. Then we noticed that there was a not-insignificant current, as we drifted away from the pinnacle :)

Photo by Robert Lee

We continued around to the other end, where there are some bigger structures off the end of the main pinnacle. It was over here that we saw a wolf eel last year. Sure enough, as we came around, someone signaled to me and I swan over and saw a wolf eel, completely out in the open. Of course he scurried under a rock before Rob could get any pics. Then we poked around there for a while. Rob was chasing a cabezon, who hopped from rock to rock, pausing long enough for Rob to get a shot or two off before he moved on. I was looking through the kelp at the various cute little sculpins skittering around. Eventually we decided to continue around the pinnacle. We passed Beto and Susan we hanging out under a really pretty overhang, covered in the cotton-candy colors of Corynactis and various sponges. We were swimming against the current, which was actually a bit of a fight, and then we finally came around a corner, so that we were now going with the current, and we basically got dragged around the end of the pinnacle in short order and taken for a ride back up to the other end. By this time it was time to begin our ascent. Compost comes up to about 30 feet, so there was nice scenery on the way up, and even on top, there was kelp, so we spent our 20 foot stop looking at the Corambe's on the kelp (there were tons of them!). After that, we headed over to the line and spent the ascent kicking slowly against the current to stay with the line. 99 feet, 66 minutes, 48 degrees

Photo by Robert Lee

For the third dive, we headed back north close to where we did the first dive. I'm not sure what exactly transpired, because after eating some tasty croissant sandwiches, I took a nap on the deck. It was quite cozy, especially the metal parts which were nice and warm from the sun. I have never understood how anyone could sleep on the deck, but now I finally get it... once I found a suitable pillow (Rob's leg), it was a great nap (and a great way to get sunburned). When we got to the site for dive 3, I really didn't feel like getting back in :P I got the feeling that everyone sort of felt that way, since it had been a long day already. We ended up at a site with 2 peaks, the shallowest of which came up to around 40 feet. I think the viz was a little better than the first site (in terms of the water being clean) but it was still fairly dark at depth. Right where we dropped, there was a wall from maybe 50 feet down to about 100 feet, which was pretty cool. We swam along it and eventually that petered out to a lower-lying reef from about 80 feet to the bottom. While we were poking around there, I saw a Dirona, but lost site of it because of all of the kelp flapping in the breeze. Clinton found a pair of Ancula gibbosas, which I was very excited to see (I think I've only seen one once before, also near Big Sur). Clinton also pointed out a stalked jellyfish to me, which I had never seen before.

Photo by Robert Lee

This section of the reef was a little deeper than I wanted to average, so I suggested we head back to the earlier wall part, which came up shallower. We headed back, and passed John and Matt, who pointed something out to Clinton. When I swam over to look, Clinton indicated that he didn't know what they had pointed at. Apparently they saw two Dironas. We continued along, stopping at a little ridge off to the side of the pinnacle, which had a few nice hydrocoral bushes. Then we headed back to the wall and a little shallower. We passed the anchor, and while Rob was taking some pictures, I signaled to Clinton that we should head up when he was done. In the meantime, Clinton found a really cool new-to-me slug, Doto amyra -- it was tiny! After he finished taking pics, we headed up. Once we got above the pinnacle, there was significant current. I was alternating between hanging onto the line and swimming against the current just off the line, but eventually settled on hanging onto the line :) A variety of jellyfish drifted by us while we were there, including a lot of egg yolk jellies. It was fun to watch the jellyfish parade, but not so fun hanging onto the line, so I was pretty happy when we hit the surface ;) 96 feet, 66 minutes, 46 degrees

Photo by Clinton Bauder

On the way home, we had cupcakes for Rob's birthday. Rob said later that it would have probably been better to save the cupcake for after the hellish trip home. It was definitely bumpy in spots, but not the worst trip back from Big Sur that I've had. Definitely worse than average though. I rode back in the wheelhouse, where I listened to John and Phil take turns telling jokes. The highlight was definitely the Menachem joke :)