This afternoon featured snorkel excursion #3. Kelly, Daniel, and I headed first to Lunada Bay. The steep, sandy path down the cliff led to a peaceful cove full of kelp. Unfortunately, there were only a handful of silver fish in the maze of seaweed, so we regrouped and moved to a different site.
Malaga Cove proved rewarding! The water was pretty clear, and hosted the usual garibaldi and various other fish that i need to learn to identify (garibaldi are easy, because they are bright, bright orange). An angel shark swam right under me, and I followed him for a moment! But as you can see below, he’s pretty tame as far as sharks go….
I spied a neat shell, so I dove my deepest yet to retrieve it (about 10 feet- not impressive. but i’m increasing time spent under water and stuff). We examined the shell, and found it empty and perfect. Though I don’t want to harvest the ocean of it’s natural beauty, taking one shell to represent this dive seemed reasonable. So in the goody bag it went as we enjoyed the rest of the dive…. including swimming with a school of at least a hundred mackerel!
I couldn’t find an image of the type of shell, so you’ll just have to imagine that it’s cone-shaped with barnacles and stuff growing on the top, and a swirly underside, pearly and shimmery on the inside.
When we got home, we set our shells on the an empty pizza box on the counter for cleaning later. However, when I stepped out of the shower, I noticed two shells were not exactly where we left them… and they were moving!!
Quickly, I gathered the runaway shells, and little crabs ducked back deep inside (invisible again). After recruiting a gladware container to hold the stowaways, I jumped in my car and drove down the street to the beach. Soon the little guys were safely back in the ocean to live the rest of their long, happy, crabby days.
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