On Saturday I visited my 12 California Mission which is actually the closest to where I live. The Santa Clara Mission is a very nice place. The Santa Clara University campus is one of the most beautiful campuses that I’ve seen.

There isn’t much left of the original mission at this location. A single adobe wall exists along side the church. The church itself burned to the ground in 1926. The rebuilt church is beautiful inside with a marvelous ceiling and altar area.

If you want to see artifacts, visit the art museum where various mission and university items are located.

Santa Clara is California’s oldest-operating institution of higher education, with more than 150 years of history.

My collection of images from the Portland Art Museum in December

Started out my diving year with two dives at Point Lobos with the Rainbow Divers, the best dive club in the Bay Area. The group was small, just 5 of us but the day was great — the weather was perfect, sunny and with a slight breeze and cool. The water was flat as well and vis was a clear 15-20 feet — good enough to keep in contact with your buddy but not requiring you to be on top of you.

We did two easy dives, not going very deep. It was good for me just to be in the water again since I hadn’t been out since October. Here are my dive profiles:

Dive 453: 48 feet for 41 minutes

454: 42 feet for 46 minutes

My top 3 photos from the day:

San Diego Dorid, Nudibranch

Sunflower star amid Anemone and other critters

Ling cod

I saw this video posted from Twitter today and thought it so cool that this artist works underwater.  I would love to have one of his paintings.

Sunday, January 16th, 2011, was my first dive day of the new year and it was a great day.  Driving down there in the morning, it was very foggy but on the ocean the waves were moderate and conditions good.  By the end of the day the fog had cleared and it was a beautiful sunshine day.

The first dive was Pescadero Point — we entered the water with a slight swell.  I realized on this dive that if I don’t attach my dive computer it hangs lower than 3 feet and starts my dive while I’m on the surface.  If you look at the dive chart below you’ll see I was diving for 5 minutes before I actually went down — that sort of screws with your average dive depth. Saw lots of little crabs that were cool an just liked being in the water again.  Dive time was 48 minutes, 79 ft and the water temp. was 53.  (click on image to see full profile)

 

Pictures from the day can be found on my Facebook page

No diver along the Pacific Coast should be without this book.   Eastern Pacific diving is all about invertebrate life and this book will give you the overview of every major critter that you might see.

All of my dive buddies own this book and every copy you see is use worn or have pages coming out of the binding because so many of us grab it before we dry off to figure out what we saw on the dive.   If you are a diver, you have to have this book.

Click on the link to the left to order you copy today.

Purple stripped jellyfish, Pelagia noctiluca, originally uploaded by Ed Bierman.

The best creature I saw this past year was the purple-striped. I saw this beauty on a dive at Santa Cruz Island in the Fall. I only had seen these once before many years ago in the Big Sur area, I spent a lot of time shooting this one.

Here is some information from Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysaora_colorata

The purple-striped jelly (Chrysaora colorata, formerly Pelagia colorata) is a species of jellyfish exists primarily off the coast of California in Monterey bay. The bell (body) of the jellyfish is up to 70 cm in diameter, typically with a radial pattern of stripes. The tentacles vary with the age of the individual, consisting typically of eight marginal long dark arms, and four central frilly oral arms. It is closely studied by scientists due to not much being known about their eating habits.[1]

Often cancer crabs make home in the jellyfish and eat the parasitic amphipods that feed on and damage the jelly.[2]

Here are my dive stats for 2010 — not as many dives as in the past, will work on getting back into it this coming year.

Totals	36 Dives		Avg Time	44.11	65.39
			Total Hours	26.55

Dive Number	Date	Location	Dive Site	Dive Time	Depth
405	1/16/2010	Monterey	Amentos	39	89
406	1/16/2010	Carmel	Easter Pinnacles	33	70
407	4/17/2010	Carmel	Flintstones	34	88
408	4/17/2010	carmel	eastern pinicles	35	72
409	5/9/2010	Carmel	Butterfly House	46	69
410	5/9/2010	Carmel	Stillwater Cove	35	56
411	5/20/2010	Monterey	Breakwater	66	47
412	5/29/2010	Monterey	Breakwater	77	43
413	5/29/2010	Monterey	Breakwater	58	31
414	6/11/2010	San Clementi Island	East End Wall	40	70
415	6/11/2010	San Clementi Island	Disneyland	51	61
416	6/11/2010	San Clementi Island	Conquest	51	81
417	6/11/2010	San Clementi Island	The Garage	31	40
418	6/12/2010	San Clementi Island	The Arch	30	96
419	6/12/2010	San Clementi Island	Octopus Garden	53	60
420	6/12/2010	San Clementi Island	Neptunes Wall	53	56
421	6/12/2010	San Clementi Island	Bay Ray Cove	56	67
422	6/13/2010	Anacapa Island	Underwater Arch	57	50
423	6/13/2010	Anacapa Island	The Garden	57	42
424	6/13/2010	Anacapa Island	Portuguese Rock	29	36
425	6/19/2010	Carmel	Stillwater Cove	47	63
426	6/19/2010	Carmel	Easter Pinnacles	35	81
427	8/14/2010	Carmel	Outer Inner Pennicle	31	87
428	8/14/2010	Monterey	Point Joe	38	78
429	9/16/2010	San Miguel	Oil Springs	44	74
430	9/16/2010	San Miguel	Judith’s Pinnicle	42	86
431	9/16/2010	San Miguel	Tyler’s Bight	19	71
432	9/16/2010	San Miguel	Tyler’s Bight	42	57
433	9/17/2010	San Miguel	Wyoff Ledge	47	74
434	9/17/2010	San Miguel	Wyoff Ledge	38	84
435	9/17/2010	San Miguel	Rain Barrel	35	85
436	9/17/2010	San Miguel	Crock Point	40	59
437	9/18/2010	Santa Cruz Island	Tiny’s	41	61
438	9/18/2010	Santa Cruz Island	Ruby Rock	60	63
439	9/18/2010	Santa Cruz Island	Ruby Rock	50	60
440	9/18/2010	Santa Cruz Island	Ruby Rock	48	47
Totals	36 Dives		Avg Time	44.11	65.39
			Total Hours	26.55

Photos from my diving day in Monterey in June

Here are my images from the Northern Calfornia Rainbow Divers trip to the Channel Islands.  It was a lot of fun and the LGBT group is one of the best diving clubs in the Bay Area.