With the recent giant sea bass sightings in Palos Verdes along with the blue water returning to the Southern California coast, I thought it was time to venture north to the Star of Scotland. We had witnessed a large gathering of GSBs there before, and we were treated to at least twenty yesterday. There may have been more, but we couldn't see them in the six feet of visibility.

My video camera was unable to focus on the fish in open water above the wreck. I ended the day with about ten minutes of footage of a speck of dirt inside the dome port. The rest of the video is of the wreck itself, which seems to be deteriorating more rapidly in the past couple of years.

Our next dive was to be at the Redondo Barge. We found blue water between Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, including two large Mola Molas at the surface. By the time we reached the barge, the surface water was a familiar green. It was decided that we would check out the damage to the area where the sand barge was working off the Topaz Jetty.

Kevin Lee went into the canyon to one hundred feet and found only furrows of sand. Near the pilings, the algae that supported a myriad of life was gone. We couldn't even find the pilings in the poor visibility. In ninety-one minutes I saw only three nudibranchs, two lizardfish and a few small crabs. Gone were the variious nudis were were used to finding, the yellow and brown rock crabs, halibut, calico rockfish and small sheephead. The entire area was a dead zone.

A fire department boat came by twice to shoo us off the site. According to Google Earth we were 936 feet from shore, but the guys with badges insisted that we cannot anchor within 900 feet of the end of the jetty, which they consider the shoreline. No matter, as we won't be returning to this site for a long time.

This was what the area was like before the "Renourishment" project began in August.

• Re: Conditions from yesterday in a word...meh Andy S 03:22:12 10/30/12 (0)