Great Annual Fish Count -- A Different Perspective

The following dive report was posted by John Wolfe on the BA_diving Yahoo Group chronicling the Great Annual Fish Count dive that occurred last Saturday:

A plucky group of divers showed up at Coral Street for the morning fish survey: entymology professor Bob, Venture Crewmember (used to be called Explorer Scout) Cameron, mechanical engineers Will, Mina & Peter (coincidence, none had met before), and elementary school teacher (and long time fish surveyor) Alan. Peter did the survey as a freediver (he later let on that he was on the US national free diving team in 2004), which was of great interest, to see what anon-bubble-blower could sneak up on (answer: Opaleye). Peter, free diving, went out farther and dove deeper than any of the SCUBA divers. We were impressed (cool carbon fiber fins, too).

Ocean conditions were very pleasant: flat, with nice 20' viz. And the fish were there, showing off. Hoards of JUVENILE ROCKFISH hovering over the reef !!! (very encouraging, after several years of NO juvenile rockfish, essentially a drought since 2001). These are"black-spot-on-the-dorsal-fin" juveniles - my guess is black rockfish, with a smattering of yellowtail, but I'm eager to hear whatTom Laidig says. Peter says they're even more abundant past the outer edge of the kelp. And scores of beautiful rainbow seaperch graced the nearshore end of the sand channel, one of the prettier fish in our area. Our group list was quite respectable for first-time fish counters:

• Kelp Greenling
• Painted Greenling
• Blue Rockfish
• Black Rockfish
• Kelp Rockfish
• Opaleye
• Monkeyface Prickleback Eel
• Cabezon
• Black-Eye Goby
• Black Seaperch
• Kelp Seaperch
• Pile Seaperch
• Rainbow Seaperch
• Striped Seaperch
• Senorita

Went over to the aquarium in the afternoon to meet Gil Falcone forthe fish ID seminar, which the aquarium graciously lets us hold in their upstairs classroom. Gil and I have done this for several years now - this time we decided to try to do it in a Click & Clack Tappit Brothers style of back & forth that made it more fun for us to give. The audience of morning divers were augmented by some curious aquarium volunteers, a couple more ba_divers, and by more Venture Crew young adults from Davis who hadn't yet let learned to SCUBA dive (the Venture Crew in Davis is pretty cool, it has diving as one of their main activities - thanks to Bob's tutelage and Will's help). Folks even grokked the "Blurry Moving Video Fish Quiz" at the end (strictly self-test, I've learned not to ask folks how well theydid on it, I always forget how hard/tricky this fish ID stuff is when you're first starting out). Gil then led us through the kelp tank area of the aquarium - if you haven't seen the new smaller kelp tanks upstairs near the big kelp tank, it's definitely worth checking out. Several Southern California fish species in there too, handy to view for brushing upon your southern species (Sargo, Salema, Halfmoon, etc) before your next trip to the Channel Islands.

Dropped by Tabouli's restaurant on Lighthouse Avenue before heading home. Had to "warn" Christophe that Rachid was coming to town (they're friends, Rachid camps at Veterans' campground, dives everyday, and uses Tabouli's as his living room each evening). If you haven't met Rachid yet, know that a few years back he was one the zanier characters in our local diving scene - before moving toLouisiana to care for his ailing mother. GAFC events coming up: Steve Lonhart's marine invertebrate ID presentation on Monday and Mike Davis' basic north central californiafish ID class on Tuesday, both at 7pm, offered by the Dive Club of Silicon Valley (DCOSV) at Diver Dan's in Santa Clara; and then DCOSV's fish count & picnic at Lovers Point in Pacific Grove on Saturday, July 12.