Kelpscape

A Palm Amidst the Strawberries

The fields of strawberry anemones are broken occasionally by other inhabitants who have made homes there.  Feather duster worms like this one aren't uncommon.  Usually these are shy and hard to photograph: they withdraw into their protective tubes at the slightest movement. Its stinging neighbors may have made this one bolder.  It looks like a palm tree in a garden of tropical-flavored lifesavers.

Strawberry Fields

I'm always happy to see corynactis, also called strawberry anemones.  They form a thick carpet on the big ledge at Refugio right now, after seasons of retreat.  They are moving onto the top of the ledge, but the thick growths are in crevices.

Sculpin at Refugio

Water was green and fish were few on the East side of Refugio today.  It's the season of kelp spawning and the water above the kelp looked completely cloudy. Kelp needs cold water to reproduce and today it was 51F. Clouds of tiny salps and jellfish fogged the scene elsewhere, and clouds of krill (well, probably mysid shrimp) gathered off the reef. Thick colonies of corynactis covered the Big Ledge.  To the south, in deeper water, sea apples are taking over the bottom, covering it with their lacy white tentacles.  At least two sculpins had found homes there. One was bld, the other very shy. I was glad to have brought the D700 on its first beach dive.

Juvenile Bocaccio

This juvenile Bocaccio was at Refugio Beach. He was in water only about 8 feet deep, close to the beach. Further out was an enormous school of hundreds of juvenile gopher rockfish, with a few Bocaccio thrown in. I like the way this youngster looks kind of bony, and shows of his outthrust lower jaw.  He will be a serious fish when he grows up.

Refugio Beach

Refugio Beach is the most entertaining and accessible cove along the Gaviota Coast -- for both scuba divers and ocean creatures. I learned to beach dive there, but after more than 200 dives at Refugio, I still see something new on every dive. Every day the ocean presents a new episode of its eternal serial drama, in which each scene quickly gives way to another, introducing new actors to meet with the old ones.

As I learned to dive, I began to recognize the players on California's ocean stage: sea slugs with electric blue margins and orange tufts, fractal-mouthed burrowing clams, anemones of all sizes and colors, all amidst forests of kelp and meadows of eelgrass. I noticed changes from year to year. A dozen angel sharks assembled beyond the rocky reef, the next year swell sharks gathered, and the next jellyfish flowed through. One year the gray whales migrated near shore, and one surprised me with its blasted exhalation when I surfaced. Lizardfish were common early on; they reappeared only years later. Cormorants zipped past me underwater. A wolf eel moved in for awhile, far south of his typical range. Refugio Beach contains an ever-changing variety of sea life.

Over 12 years, I've noticed trends within the many fluctuations: an erosion in the amount of kelp, increases in the area of completely bare reef, and a decline in sizes and numbers of fish. Lobsters-large and common on my first dives-are gone. Urchins are more plentiful, the kelp thinner. Indeed, records and photos from a half-century ago show that kelp is much thinner, and that many fish once plentiful, such as sheepshead, are now gone from Refugio; although they still thrive in the marine reserves in the Channel Islands.

We are affecting the ocean -- as we have been for generations -- and we have the power to change it more. We can't ensure the survival of individual ocean creatures, and some species may be beyond recovery; but the ocean has tremendous powers of regeneration. We can set free those powers.

This description of Refugio Beach was written for Marc Shargel's upcoming book, "Wonders of the Sea: The Southern California Coast".

Ling Cod at Refugio

Ling cod are stealth predators and often lie still, relying upon their camouflage.

Evil Nudibranch Twin

This nudibranch looks like it's glowing redly from within as it erupts from a blade of red algae.  Actually the strobe is shining through the kelp, illuminating an opalescent nudibranch (Hermissenda crassicornis).  When the surge passes and the kelp blade turns, the same nudibranch an instant later still looks like it's glowing from within -- but with white light rather than red, from the unfiltered strobe.  So it's really that color, right?  Well, when not illuminated by the strobe it looks pretty bland, to eyes or cameras. No doubt it looks pretty different to the underwater creatures, who have eyes that see different colors -- when they have eyes at all.

Sea Orange

These look like big, orange versions of the yellow nudibranchs known as "sea lemons".  We call them sea oranges. I am not good at nudibranch identification but I will guess that it is one of the Dendrodorids. We found it on the urchin barrens, on the west side of Refugio Beach.  It was about the size of a golf ball.

It's interesting how everything under water gets named after something above water.  We have sea lemons, sea apples, seaweed, sea urchins, and now sea oranges and sea hedgehogs. 

Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick, in the wonderful chapter "Brit":

For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him.

The labrador retriever of the sea is definitely the sheephead (which have nothing to do with sheep's heads, so far as I can tell). Sharks seem more like cats: maybe bobcats or cougars. Hermann should have learned to scuba dive.

Pipefish

Pipefish are relatives of sea horses.  Although they're slow swimmers, pipefish are faster than me and can usually stay ahead of me underwater.  This fellow was interested enough in me to watch for a few seconds: after which he was off!  He was in about 15 feet of water, in a tangle of torn-off decaying kelp.  I think this must provide food for his prey.

Octopus at Refugio

This two-spotted octopus was hanging out under a ledge in the shallow water just off Surfer's Point at the west end of Refugio Cove.  I think it was enjoying a quick lunch.

Happy Earth Day!