On Groundhog Day, February 2nd, Pieter Booth, Chuck Barrett, and I met at Redondo. As we got into the water for our first dive at a very high tide, Chuck did not feel right about his equipment (it was his first time in his drysuit since August!) so he headed back in while Pieter and I headed out. We went down to check the deep boat to start with. Nothing much was going on at the boat, but the adolescent Wolf Eel in the tire just up the slope was playing peek-a-boo with us. While Pieter was taking pictures of the little guy, I found a Bay Pipefish about 10 feet further up the slope. We then headed up to the shallow boat where we found Chuck looking at the GPO under the boat. He has worked things out and had come down to join us. When I looked for the Decorated Warbonnet in the little hole on the nearby big pipe, I could not see him, but I saw the eggs he had been guarding. We continued on and at the pipe boat found a gunnel on eggs in one of the pipes. When I dove at Redondo last month, I found two gunnels in this pipe. They have been busy! 

Chuck left after the first dive, so it was just Pieter and me for the second dive. Pieter wanted to start out with another look at the little Wolf Eel. The Wolf Eel has a roommate in the tire, a small rockfish. The Wolf Eel is definitely the boss of the tire. As we started up the slope, we came across a GPO out walking about. We followed it back up to its home under the shallow boat. When I checked again on the Decorated Warbonnet, he was back home again. We then continued on through the junkyard. There was not much to see as we swam through the junkyard. We did find that a guitar has been tied onto the steering wheel of the Volkswagen Bug. On the way back to the entry/exit point, we found a second GPO tucked way back under a concrete slab.

The water temperature was a chilly 46 degrees and the vis was 20-30 feet. The sun never came out from behind the clouds, so like the groundhog, we never saw our shadows.

To see Pieter’s pictures and video of our dives, staring the GPO out walking about, go to:
https://vimeo.com/58834103