Northwest Dive Club

A stranger gave me the hot tip yesterday, so thought I'd pass it on.

Redondo Beach. Go south (or left facing the water) down the beach past the fishing pier, out to this boxy townhouse with a flat roof. There's a house with a blue tarp on the roof a couple doors down. It's a good 5 minute walk in gear, which in yesterday's record heat, was unpleasant. Straight out from the townhouse. About 8 feet at very low tide, 18-20 feet at very high tide. The big piles of egg casings make it easy to spot. Plus, you know, the hundreds of squid.

There are hundreds of them still mating as of yesterday evening. It's quite a horrifying sight actually. Five or six males latching onto a female. Dragging exhausted females off the bottom. Crabs dragging same females away to feast on them.

I don't know how long it lasts, so hurry while you still can. A dive flag would be strongly recommended. I'll share pictures later.

ooh, cool!!

Sounds awesome & sad! Thanks for the tip!

thanks for the tip! Sounds like perfect dive for a... wait for it... Scooter!

derekcs wrote:https://derekcs.smugmug.com/Underwater/ ... ing-201507

NICE shots!!! I was there this morning on the North side of Salty's & the MaST pier doing my safety stop when a school of thousands and thousands of squid swam past me. It was amazing!!! I'm glad I looked UP!

So cool Derek!
Nice vid and pics!!!

Very cool stuff. What an awesome event I loved the pics and video.

Wow. How cool. I'd love to see that.

Thanks for the compliments, everyone.
If anyone is interested in checking it out, - I have no idea how long it lasts - I might be able available Sunday. Feel free to PM me.

PM sent

Wow, what a frenzy! Thanks for posting the video Derek.

Derek, that is quite the sight!!! Glad you were able to get some terrific shots of the event.
- Janna

Spent some time down there last evening. They're still down there by the thousands. Unfortunately, vis was on the order of 3-4 feet, because they're so shallow and the plankton was thick. Took about 170 pictures ... kept 18. These were the best of the bunch ...



















... Bob (Grateful Diver)

nwscubamom wrote:Derek, that is quite the sight!!! Glad you were able to get some terrific shots of the event.
- Janna

Thanks, Janna! Good to hear from you.

Grateful Diver wrote:Spent some time down there last evening. They're still down there by the thousands. Unfortunately, vis was on the order of 3-4 feet, because they're so shallow and the plankton was thick. Took about 170 pictures ... kept 18. These were the best of the bunch ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yeah, I had the same issue with viz. I actually thought it was better at extreme low tide than high tide because of more sunlight coming through. That was also the day it hit 100 degrees...

Very cool!
Does anybody know if they're still there? I thought they'd only be there a day or two.

Does anyone have landmarks other than blue tarp. May not be able to see that at night.

Thanks!
-Eric

YellowEye wrote:Very cool!
Does anybody know if they're still there? I thought they'd only be there a day or two.

Does anyone have landmarks other than blue tarp. May not be able to see that at night.

Thanks!
-Eric

I went out there several days ago, before I got terribly sick :-( When I surfaced it was right in front of the house with a "12th" man flag (very small) hanging over the door. I believe it is 4-5 houses north of the one with the tarp. It will be very tough to find at night. For some reason I was feeling B&W for this shoot. I thought it would be a graceful experience. However, it was pretty violent. However, it was definitely a very cool encounter.

















And one in color :-)


Take care and have a safe weekend.

BTW- thank you Derek for the tip and post. What a great experience.

Great pics Jesse!!! Hope you feel better soon!
Just saw some squid, don't think I got any pics, but so cool to see

ScubaJess wrote:Great pics Jesse!!! Hope you feel better soon!
Just saw some squid, don't think I got any pics, but so cool to see

What did you think of the event? Kind of sad to see all the stressed out squid.

We only saw a few and the seemed more graceful and standoffish then those pictures. But all those pics are crazy!!! Poor squid. I saw a lot of crabs eating the eggs.

ScubaJess wrote:We only saw a few and the seemed more graceful and standoffish then those pictures. But all those pics are crazy!!! Poor squid. I saw a lot of crabs eating the eggs.

Yeah, I saw a few crab snatch squid right out of the water column.

I posted this in other thread but I thought I'd add it here too since its soooo cool!