Water clarity

Talley Ho , I'm pretty sure we had that very discussion ourselves . I didn't know that you guys went with the screen name but life at our house is sometimes a wine-a-rama too !

I think it was that same morning that I saw some very small , brilliant blue particles , "dancing" in the water . My first thought was , malagua , or some kind of stinging critters but there was enough of them that I must have touched some with no ill effects . The sun had been up for an hour at least but the direct sunlight was just breaking from the mountain and you guys were just coming ashore . Have you noticed this before ?

The visibility at the Intrawest rocks is particularly fickle and sometimes a dead flat calm water morning does not translate to super clear conditions and sometimes it does . The saving grace of that location is the rising spires of light reflecting rock that can turn twelve to fifteen feet of water into three to four feet of depth , even 50 yards out from the exposed rocks . The farthest spines and fingers are to the south . The most productive fingers and cliffs are nearest to the exposed rock at it's outermost point and around to the Madera side .

A new friend , Ted , and I enjoyed a very clear morning and we had a very satisfying encounter with the large cloud of Yellowtailed Surgeonfish . Later that morning I took to diving down to the bottom , maybe 12 feet and got some triggerfish and what appears to be Pacific Spadefish . The very farthest small exposed rock tip at any tide marks the outer tip of a small underwater canyon , 12 - 15 feet deep and twenty yards wide . The "inside" of this canyon is the big rock in places and there are good viewing islands around the rock fingers to the working visability on any given day . There are tons of sharp urchins everywhere and so you must gaurd against allowing a poor body position with wave action .

If you are a confident swimmer you can circumnavigate the whole rock staying safely away from all the fingers but just inside of that last exposed small rock , for some protection from boats . Continue all the way around until you come to what appears to be a small bay backing on the large rock itself . You can enter toward the big rock for a good shot at rays and the surgeonfish and the turtle . I saw what I think were Cortez Angelfish in different stages and a King Angel as well but these sightings are rare enough at the best of times . I would always enter and exit on the La Ropa side as the water can be dangerously shallow and can be even shallower than the last time with changing tides . I wear a rashgaurd shirt as a chemical free sunscreen and minimal protection from shore rubs . If a shore rub includes an urchin you will remember the contact much longer .

I was using an Olympus stylus tough camera but can't stress enough the "magic" of Picasa Web 3 in clarifying the "green water" images and cropping and highlighting the targets but only with the standard , "I'm feeling lucky" tabs .

I really did get lucky with some telephoto turtle shots and not so lucky with swimming fish and rays that move too much for the setting .

This is a five species shot showing the range of visabily and the green beyond .

In the past I have been a very selfish snorkeler and so have very limited photography skills and lots of footage of the side of my leg .

I really wanted to record some of the sea life in the bay which is an astounding resource for tourism .