Opposed wind and swell drove the dive boat Raptor into the sheltered anchorage of Potato Harbor on Saturday. It was 52 F, with quite a bit of sure even in this sheltered anchorage. Sand, urchin-covered rocks and a few patches of kelp were about all there was to see. And, abundant sunlight.
This calendar is made from images taken in December 2011 at Alor Divers in Alor Strait. It's published in January, so it starts with February.
I wanted to make the images as large as possible, so I wrote up the captions separately. Download 2012Captions
Bryozoans make a great pattern on a kelp frond. They don't appear to harm it, and they provide sustenance for some of the other small animals that live on kelp.
Juvenile rockfish have been phenomenally plentiful this year, appearing in numbers above sea palms off the mainland beaches. I really like their insolent expressions. They look like spoiled young magnates. Not many will live to adulthood, though.
The network of narrow ridges south of El Montanon Ridge on Santa Cruz Island, seemed like Mars, but with a lot of fog. I'm not sure whether it was bad to have the fog, so that we couldn't see how steep and narrow the ridges are; or if a spectacular view would have made up for it. This seems to be a good place for the native plants of Santa Cruz, including the Santa Cruz buckwheat here, with yellow flowers.
This seems to be Dudleya cymosa, with the common name of Liveforever. This place atop this ridge south of El Montanon Ridge on Santa Cruz seems to suit it well, although it's very inhospitable. These plants add to the Mars-like feeling atop the ridge.
The foxes on the Channel Islands are becoming more common again. They are said to be the size of house cats, but this one seemed smaller than my smaller cat, who is not large. The foxes have been here a long time: perhaps since the end of the last Ice Age. Golden eagles moved in when the bald eagles at the islands found that DDT destroyed their eggshells; I can imagine that a fox would make a great snack for an eagle. Now the bald eagles are coming back, the golden eagles are leaving, and the foxes are multiplying. This was one of a pair, completely unafraid of us, patrolling Santa Cruz Island near the trail south from Scorpion.
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