There is no place like the ocean to put a little merry into your Christmas!  So I loaded up the truck and took off on Christmas Eve to drive from Phoenix to La Jolla Shores, AND I had a mission....to take pictures of Sarcastic Fringeheads!  But a lot of other things swam, ran, lurked or darted across my lens in the course of five Christmas dives. 

 

The shores were actually busy with surfers, walkers, and people playing in the surf...yes, Arizona....they play in the water in the winter!

 

While I did get some great fringehead pictures, the star of the weekend lurched out of the darkness at 11 pm on Christmas night.  It started as a wide white-fringed line (its mouth), and as it swam toward me, it turned into a large angel shark.  The first pictures below are of that angel shark, and it was a beautiful thing indeed! 

 

The Sarcastic Fringehead lives in holes and pokes its head out.  It is a cute little fish and the center of my focus for the trip.  I was lucky to meet with Judith Garfield who was also diving The Shores.  Judith has written books on fish ID and currently writes an ocean/fish life column for The La Jolla Village News, www.sdnews.com.  We talked about the fish, and she showed me a picture that she had taken of a fringehead out of its hole and pointed out the blue spot on its long pectoral fin.  It is unusual to get a shot of the fish out of its hole.  BUT at the end of my last dive I was coming up over a wall and there was a Sarcastic Fringehead out of its hole....so there Judith!!  JUDITH - what is 'the thing' in the pictures?

 

Other things of note in this picture set are the crab with the fish (he was not going to give that up), and several good octopus shots and there are a lot of them (both large and small).  There is a shot of a small decorator crab on a kelp leaf; they are normally really hard to see and to take pictures of.  This one was practically smiling for the camera!  There was also a TINY scorpion fish and other sculpin pictures and some nice shots of tube dwelling anemones.

 

The last comment that I have is don't try and pull off the highway outside of San Diego and sleep in your truck at the top of the exit ramp....the Border Patrol guys really do not like that!! 

 

Safe diving!!