Mola Massacre

November has always been a great time to scuba dive Monterey Bay. This year, 2023, wasn't any different.

I dove two days in November, the week before Thanksgiving, and witnessed the unfortunate "mola massacre" where sea lions rip the mola's fins off. I spotted over 10 mola molas in the sea floor of the various sites we dove. It was very sad to see but that's life.

The water temperature was a "balmy" 58 degrees and the visibility was an amazing 40 feet! My trusty drysuit kept me dry and warmish so all was wonderful. Thanks to Captain MaryJo for capturing me in all my pink drysuit glory.

Normal diving temps are about 52 to 54 degrees and viz is usually "great" at 15 to 20 feet. As one of my dive buddies said, this is why we dive Monterey for dive days like this!

Friday dives took us to Aumentos and Shale Island. Saturday we went back to Aumentos attempting to do search and recovery (long story) and then dove Eric's. Both sites had great viz to the point that I found my way back to the anchor!

I was experimenting with a snoot on one of my strobes which provided a spotlight effect as seen in these shots of an anemone on a wall

and this very chill lingcod.

Here's another shot of the lingcod using both strobes thus without the spotlight effect.

What's nice about Monterey diving are the various nudibranchs that you can see. Very common is the lemon nudibranch that yes, looks like a lemon. They come in various sizes from as small as two inches to about 6 inches.

There were several of these lemon nudies as well as a cool clown nudibranch whose scientific name is Triopha catalinae, under the shale

and mating Cadlina luteomarginata nudis.

More pics of anemones, crabs, gobeys, and the sea star of Monterey Bay are here.

It's so nice to be back in the cold water!

Next stop is diving the Socorro Islands, so stay tuned! 🐋