Photograph of a tube-dwelling anemone

Toward the end of our dive, swimming out of the canyon in to shallower water, I took a few minutes to photograph one of the few Bay Pipefish (Syngnathus leptorhynchus) that we saw. The shot below was taken of the pipefish swimming over my dive buddy’s black glove.

Photograph of a Bay Pipefish (Syngnathus leptorhynchus)

I’ve now spent over 2,000 minutes underwater this July in support of the San Diego Oceans Foundation Dive-a-Thon. Please consider supporting this great organization by donating on my
Dive-a-Thon Donations page.

Thanks again to North County Scuba Center for providing air for our tanks, and to APS Mantaray for the use of their fins!

The visibility underwater was limited, so macro photography was the best option. Appropriate for this beautiful California day, I spent some quality time photographing our State Marine Fish – the Garibaldi (Hypsypops rubicundus). In one sand-bottom area, there were Garibaldi of all ages – juveniles covered with their characteristic electric blue spots, sub-adults with fewer spots and rich orange hues, and full-grown adults of bold orange with no spots.

Juvenile Garibaldi (Hypsypops rubicundus), photographed at La Jolla Cove in California

Sub-adult Garibaldi, photographed off La Jolla Cove in California

Californians are very lucky to have such beautiful marine life off our shores, and I find it startling how many school children that live here do not know what a Garibaldi looks like! I am hoping to make a difference by raising funds for ocean awareness programs for school children, hosted by the San Diego Oceans Foundation. Please consider donating to this important cause by visiting:

http://www.sdoceans.org/portal/np_landing_page.php?id=a0d40000000xOvj.

Despite warnings of Humboldt Squid (Dosidicus gigas) in the area, we’ve checked out several great new locations, so keep checking back on this site for updated pictures and reports!

In the meantime, please help us support the San Diego Oceans Foundation, and our Dive-a-Thon campaign to raise funds for ocean awareness programs for children – visit
http://www.sdoceans.org/portal/np_landing_page.php?id=a0d40000000xOvj

We’d also like to take a minute to thank the guys at North County Scuba Center – they’re providing all of the air for our dives! Also, we had the opportunity to do some diving in La Jolla with the kind folks at APS Mantaray, who provided us with fins that we’ll be using throughout the rest of the Dive-a-Thon. Many thanks!

The last two day of diving were spent shooting photos at La Jolla Shores in the eleven to sixty foot range, near the edge of the La Jolla Submarine Canyon

. This is a sand-bottom habitat, which is host to a variety of flatfish, invertibrates, and other interesting marine life. We spent a good portion of the dives over large fields of sand dollars (Dendraster excentricus) – literally thousands of them, mostly standing on end and facing the same direction perpendicular to the shoreline…it’s what sand dollars do, and it’s an amazing sight to see.

Here is a photo of a swimming crab we saw on today’s dive – it’s sitting in the middle of a giant field of sand dollars.

Swimming crab (Portunus xantusii) in a bed of sand dollars (Dendraster excentricus)

We ventured deeper and found the Spanish shawl nudibranch (Flabellina iodinea) pictured below. These sea slugs are almost supernatural looking; they are typically an inch or two in length, and get their wild colors from the food they eat (the orange polyps of the athecate hydroid).

Spanish Shawl nudibranch (Flabellina iodinea)

Stay tuned for a report from our next underwater adventure!

I spent the first day of the Dive-a-Thon off La Jolla Shores, scouting the shallow waters for subjects to photograph. I was hoping to see leopard sharks, which tend to show up en masse during the summer months, but no sightings yet. What I found instead were several Bay Pipefish (Syngnathus leptorhynchus), which I plan to go back and photograph on one of my next dives at La Jolla Shores. Check back soon to see the pictures!