a couple of dives were just off the Monterey Aquarium
Monterey has many of the same species of critters that we have, except there are some exceptions and once in awhile you can see some life that is more unique to southern locations.
Here's a common nudibranch in Puget Sound, a Leopard Nudibranch. Here in Puget Sound the spots tend to be splotchy, but in coast regions like Monterey the spots turn into dark little 'cheerios' symmetrically aligned on the body.
The Spanish Shawl is a southern slug that is sometimes seen here along the washington coast, but I've never seen one north of Monterey.
The most unique find was a large number of Chromodoris mcfarlandi, a southern slug I've seen in the Channel Islands but never in Monterey. Behrens puts Monterey as its northernmost range, but Brenna had never seen one north of Carmel so it was exciting to come across them. El Nino may have been responsible for a number of slugs coming north, time will tell if these stick around.
Here's something else that was fun to see: a shark egg case, aka 'Mermaid's Purse". The yellow yolk is a baby shark in waiting.
My visit was at the tail end of a mass entrance of pelagic crabs into the bay. We saw plenty of these in the water, at around 10-20 feet. Unfortunately they were simply too fast to capture with my still camera, but I did capture some footage with my GoPro. You can see them in the youtube video here https://youtu.be/m7-OwlSherA
Dan
the viz and conditions looked great. I even heard the tropical "crackling" sounds. Did you use a fisheye for the video?
