CAPTAIN’s bLOG
Stories from the Sea & Sights from the Depths
Clear Water Catalina
If Gold’s Gym, Venice Beach is the mecca for bodybuilding, Casino Point at Catalina Island is definitely the mecca of scuba diving. By noon the area is packed with swimmers and snorkelers weaving through the never ending line of divers queuing up for the walk down the stairway to blue heaven. Both good planning and good luck were responsible for the great experience including arriving early, before the crowds, while the water was still undisturbed and happening to be in SoCal during a weather window of calm, clear weather and water in early October.
Marbled Mola
Coming back from our morning dives on Sunday with lobsters in the live well and a newly certified diver, I spotted the tell tail sign of a Mola Mola, the lazy tail flap mimicking what’s often confused to be a shark fin breaking the surface.
Scallop gives the Red Hake the shake.
Out diving last weekend on the boat and we ended up finding some scattered and lost scallops that drifted away from their bed most likely in a winter storm. Scallops are great raw right out of the shell so grabbing a few when the opportunity presents itself is always a treat and worth the grab for a perfect snack from the salt. The scallops will pop a pucker, open up and look at you with the hundreds of eyes lining the edge of the shell and every so often you’ll find a little fish inside.
Spills Kill
On Friday, April 11th 2025, Boston had a front row seat to the irreversible and devastating damage of a marine catastrophe. In the early hours just after sunrise Fishing Vessel Eileen Rita (of New England Marine Inc.), a scalloper out of New Bedford ran around on Green Island and sank in Hypocrite Channel, just outside of the Boston inner harbor.