Date: 1/30/06

Location: straight West from Lifeguard Tower at LJS

Time: 5:50

Length: 55 mins

Surf: 3 footers, with a bit of ‘punch,’ but spaced well apart.

Viz in Shallows: 8-10 ft.

Viz at Depth: 12-15 ft.

Max Depth: 118 ft.

Temp at Depth: a bone-chilling 51 degrees [was warm enough in dry suit, but hands were burning]

Critters Seen: Angel Shark, Flounder, Brown Shrimp, Coonstripe Shrimp, Brown octos and numerous Brittle Star

After a brief delay getting through the surf with a camera and attendant lights attached, Barbara and I made it through and paddled out past the red buoy opposite the Main Life Guard Tower, taking our time and a little video of the sunset as we went.

Kicked out until we were in about 45 ft. of water, but probably should have kicked out further, due to the unusually low tide and dropped down.

I knew it was going a ‘bone-chiller’ when I immediately got a ‘ice cream headache’ and my hands started burning in the first 10 minutes of the dive, but the dive ended up being so enjoyable, I was able to put that aside temporarily.

We were headed in the general direction of Secret Garden, but were prepared to simply enjoy wherever we ended up. Passing 70–90 ft., we passed the usual assortment of white squid eggs, but not in the same abundance we had seen the other day, most likely because we were further North than we thought. The sharp ridge we dropped over was another indicator.

By 115 ft., we still hadn’t reached Secret Garden, so we elected to head a bit South. My first clue that we were probably somewhere on the North Wall [and an excellent indicator] was: numerous Brittle Star arms everywhere, poking out of the sand . Although they do exist South of the North Wall, when you see a lot of them, that’s a sure sign you’re near that Wall.

Ascending a bit, around 90 ft., we came across a sizable Halibut, laying in the sand, minding his own business, but eyeing us warily, about 31/2 ft. long, so we went over to investigate and Barbara took some video of him. Leaving Barbara to her videoing, I drifted West and back down a few feet and was startled to see two yellow eyes glowing at me in the darkness, from the sand.

I swam over in investigate and, sure enough, it was what I suspected: an Angel Shark, about 3 1/2 ft. long, laying on top of the sand, with his head and tail exposed, so we could verify the shark-like shape of the body and the flat head. Now, my adrenaline was pumping, as we very rarely see this animal at the Shores. I frantically waved my light at Barbara to get her attention without upsetting Mr. Shark too much.

After a delay of a few seconds, while she wrapped up the Halibut footage, Barbara swam over and began videoing the magnificent animal. The head was large, about 18 inches across, with little feelers protruding from the mouth and the mouth slightly open, revealing the teeth. I’d seen video of these puppies feeding on unsuspecting fish that happen to swim by and knew not to tempt fate by getting too close to the business end of this guy. They could be on you in a flash.

I notice Barbara getting a bit close to the head while videoing, then obviously having a wise change of heart about this, and backing off a bit.
He continued watching us with his beady, yellow eyes, until we decided we had bothered him enough and began swimming away.

But, he was certainly a treat that made the cold and surf well worth it.

We resumed ascending to around 60 ft., getting some good video sequences of some Coonstripe shrimp, a couple Brown shrimp and a little octo, out for a stroll by himself, artfully camouflaging himself against the brown algae background, to make it harder to see him.

Then, another treat came our way: as we were cruising along, Barbara saw this tiny little shape, about an 8th of an inch wide, drifting down above and, at first thought it was a baby Box Jelly, so she put out her hand to catch it, only to discover that is was a baby Brittle Star. How he got above us to float down, was a mystery.

Anyway, she put out her hand to catch the little fellow, who could fit on your thumbnail, and got him to attached to her glove. Luckily, he was pure white against the black background of the glove and she was able to video tape a couple minutes of this delightful little guy. She then very carefully let him drift off the glove and resume his journey, apparently, none the worse for the experience.

Shortly after this, we came across another ledge at around 60 ft., covered in adult Brittle Stars, which quickly petered out as we headed South, so, we figured by now, we were most definitely somewhere on the North Wall.

This was confirmed by the fact that shortly after this, as we headed back in at around 60 ft., the bottom dropped away from us, and instead of getting shallower the further East we went, it got deeper and we had to do a ‘blue water’ [black water] swim to reach the shallows.

I did see one live squid, on my way back in, while swimming in the Black Void, about 3 inches long. He paused to check out my light and then, with a flick of his tail, was on his way again.

All in all, except for the burning cold on my hands, it was an extremely enjoyable and worthwhile dive.

I made Barbara promise to post some of this video on her site: www.divascuba.com within the week sometime. It’s just there’s a lot of footage that needs to be edited down to acceptable size and quality, making it hard for quick turn-around times, especially when you have a day job!

I will post some sample stills of the Angel Shark on my blog below today.

Mike Bear