These photos are from Oct. 9, 2023. Visibility was a nice 30', but since it was a rainy, overcast day, it was darker than expected underwater. The shallows were full of small jellyfish.
Usually when I dive the rocky/rubble bottom around the base of the slope, there are lots of fish-eating anemones, sometimes with candy-striped shrimp living on them. Today it was still early enough in the Fall that the bottom was covered with bottom kelp, so I couldn't see much of the invertebrate life on the rocks. This rocky slope is mostly less than 30' deep. To compensate for not being able to see much under the kelp, the stalked kelp here was covered with hooded nudibranchs.
Out on the sand/gravel bottom just off the base of the rocky slope, there are some areas with boulders that I usually visit. This area is around 40' deep so it is not as covered with bottom kelp. Maybe this area catches a bit more current since there is a denser covering of invertebrate life, including lots of red urchins.
Up a bit shallower at the base of the slope near the tip of the point, there is a large landmark boulder that I also visit when I dive here. For years, there was a group of black rockfish that hung around here. When freediving started up and this site became a popular spearfishing spot, the black rockfish disappeared for some reason.
I swam up to the shallows around the surfgrass. Years ago there used to be rock greenlings here, but I haven't seen them in years. I had a good look along these shallows as I swam back along the coast to where I started, but I didn't see any today either. Hopefully they weren't speared out. The males' brilliant colours, their territorial behavior when guarding eggs and the shallow depths that they live in (only around 10' deep or so) make them easy targets for freedivers.
