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.

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.

Photos from a diving day in May of 2010

Photos from diving day on 5/20/2010

Photos from a diving day in April of 2010, Monterey.

Another beautiful NCRD trip in 2010 to San Miguel Island in the Channel Islands.

S

Photos from January 16, 2010