Kelpscape

Sand Dollars at Refugio Before the Spill

Refugio had areas of sand dollars before the oil spill. They seem to have disappeared. Are they particularly susceptible to oil, or is it for some other reason or combination of reasons? These are from Januart 2015. They were in a long, wavy band that extended from not far south of Surfer's Point to the west, at about 20 ft depth.

Kelp Maze at Tajiguas

Thick kelp at Tajiguas, before the Refugio Oil Spill, in January 2015.  Tajiguas is just to the west of the spill site, and the beach is still blocked off. If it's similar to Refugio, the ocean creatures and plants may be enjoying the respite from human visitors!

 

Refugio After the Oil Spill

Refugio Beach has now reopened after the oil spill -- and lots of people have gotten the news.  It's in good shape underwater, with some good patches of kelp; and lots of fish. It's possible that an oil spill that closes the beach may be better for wildlife than a lot of traffic by beachgoers. It reminds me of a story told to me by a health physicist who'd participated in the work to clean up Bikini Atoll. He said that there were lumps of plutonium on the beach from unexploded nuclear test devices; but that if you went into the lagoon with a net to gather a sample of fish, you needed a buddy to beat off the sharks with a baseball bat.  

Nikonos V OK! Cat Yawns.

Here's an image of Lily: the test roll is such a drag!  The Nikonos V seems to be OK. Many thanks to Color Services for their quick turnaround.  Let's see how it does underwater.  It will be a little over a week before I can post photos -- so stay tuned!

Thin Black Line

This line seems to be made up of different kinds of birds, some of them cormorants, as seen from the dive boat Peace.  I like how they have lined up at the boundary between flat and wavy water.  We're told that this marks where water from different places mixes, so perhaps there's a lot of activity, and life, under the surface right there.  This line was in the gap between Anacapa and Santa Cruz, where there's a lot of mixing of water masses. It's wonderful to imagine a curtain of diving birds, fish, and plankton. But, chances for bluewater diving in this current-filled area are slim. 

Frenchy's Cove, Anacapa

Frenchy's Cove on Anacapa looks inviting on this calm day. I've had good snorkeling to the right (West) and pretty poor snorkeling to the right (East).  The beach is narrow and mostly pebbles. It's hard to imagine that Frenchy lived for years on this beach, surviving by the generosity of passing boats. Just to the right of the cove is the Pelican Reserve, where the islands is off-limits and most of the year so is the ocean.

Wave at Sands Beach

High surf at Sands Beach today.

On the Surface at Tajiguas

Here's Tajiguas from the surface, looking across the kelp bed to the west and north.  I had a few frames left at the end of the dive. Tajiguas is said to mean "it leaks" in Chumash.  A canyon a short distance inland is the county dump.

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".

Krill in the Kelp Forest

Wycoff Ledge off San Miguel Island was thick with krill.  The krill seem to form rivers as they flow across the underwater terrain.  Each stream is made up of one size of krill.