Pleasant Late Summer

I am saying late summer but it’s actually autumn already. My last visit to Goat Island proved to be very fruitful. I did not swim across the channel to the island, but followed the coast to the right side of the beach. As you can see from the pictures the terrain varies a lot. You can choose from exposed barren rock platforms, sandy flats with schools of fish, seaweed meadows grazed by red moki and kelp covered rocky reefs that hide crayfish and bigeyes in their crevices. The visit has reminded me why I love diving in temperate waters. Coral reefs are beautiful, but they are busy cities under the sea. Temperate ocean is a wild and mysterious forest.

Surf waves creating streams of bubbles over flat rocky platforms in shallow water.

This snapper is illustrating what it means to swim against the flow.

Diver interacting with curious fish on the bottom where the reef meets the sand.

Red spiny lobster in the darkness of the cave.

Underwater rocky reef covered with brown kelp Ecklonia radiata.

Red moki is a sheep on the meadows of temperate Pacific ocean.