King of the Kelp Forest

During our first dive in Santa Barbara Island, we encountered a giant black sea bass within 15 minutes. Seeing this fish was initially quite startling due to its size. This one was easily five feet long and as wide as a volkswagen bug. These gentle giants can grow up to 7 feet and can weigh more than 700 pounds! They are usually spotted swimming along the kelp at depths of 35 to 100 feet.

My buddy Linda and I were thrilled that this fish stayed with us the whole dive. We treated it like a pup, coaxing it to come near us. This guy was circling us the entire dive and we were fighting to keep up with it. I definitely took lots of photos!

Here are a few of my favorites:

This photo shows the size of the sea bass covering Linda.

Here's one that Linda took of me and the guy. The sea grass looks like a beard on the sea bass 😂.

This next shot looks like Linda is listening to the sea bass' heart, hey, she's a fish doctor too!

Now the sea bass looks like it is having Linda for lunch ᴺᵒᵐ ⁿᵒᵐ ⁿᵒᵐ(•⤙•)

Here's a shot of the sea bass lurking behind Linda, uh oh 😨 😱 🙀.

The fish came up close so many times that I noticed that it had what looked like whiskers on its face. However, on my third encounter, these "whiskers" were moving all over the fish's face. I learned that they were not whiskers but parasitic sea lice. Perhaps this guy wanted us to scrape them off his face? 🤷🏽‍♀️¯

At one point, this guy was joined by another sea bass! All in all, we had three sea bass encounters during this trip. What a treat!

Check out the rest of the sea bass pictures. Hope you learned more about the king of the kelp forest 😊 🤩 😺.