Monday January 2 - Skyline Wall

Thick  Strap Sponge? with Pink Encrusting Sponge

It was a good day of diving.  We timed the the tides so that the ebb pulled us out and the flood pushed us in.  The visibility was about 10-15 feet and the light decreased rapidly as we dropped down to 80 feet on the wall.  Similar to other sites in the area in the winter the usually abundant aquatic creatures were either gone or in hiding to return when the water warmed and the food sources increased.  The majority of the rock formations were covered with encrusting sponges of multiple colors including pink, brown and orange along with some other sponges in shapes reminiscent of the futuristic houses in Sleeper.  

We made our way along the rock formation looking in cracks and crevices for any creatures we could find.  I didn't know, but found out later, that Katie was waiting for me to swim by so that she could send a lingcod shooting my way.  Fortunately, I took to long and she tired of waiting.  We found one GPO deep within a crevasse with numerous copper and black rockfish residing under the overhangs along the wall.  The crimson anemones were few but the ones I did find were a deep red so I attempted to illuminate them with my dive light while photographing with my other hand.   

As our no deco time ticked down we began to move up the wall to shallower depths eventually ending up at 35 feet prolonging our time well beyond our air supplies.  We were well into the dive at this point so we began moving back along the rocks to the exit point at the beach.  As I stopped to take some pictures I quickly lost Steve and his son, Eric, since The flood tide came up fast.  Max flood was 2.5 knots, so it was difficult to stay in one place.  For the safety stop it was necessary to hold onto the rocks and the kelp while trying to take some last photos of the sponges eventually letting go and gliding through the kelp beds.  The swim back to the beach was long but well worth it and much easier with a little help from the current.  All in all a beautiful dive with friends.  Not much is better than that.