This was an experience that I will not forget for a long time.  Late at night is one of my favorite times to dive at the shores. It is quiet, and it is, quite frankly, a little scary.  However, sometimes there are great sights to be seen at that time and the squid run was one of them.  See below the pictures -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have tried to put the pictures into some form of order to try and show all the things that are happening in the run.  My first view was of a single squid skimming across the sand dollars just before I dropped over the edge of the canyon.  The opalescent squid (Loligo opalescens) is a small squid that has been a mainstay of the California fishing industry for a long time.  They get to a maximum length of about 6-7 inches long.  They come up from the deep to mate and lay their eggs in the sand just above the wall.  The egg masses are easy to find.

 

Once over the wall and in the middle of the run, I was simply engulfed by squid.  It was hard to take pictures or see beyond the masses of the bodies of the squid; they were between me and the camera.  I could feel them touching my lips and exposed parts of my face. 

 

The sequence of pictures shows the large numbers of squid, but look to see the squid fighting and then the start of the mating process.  When you see the red tentacles, look closely and you can see that the female is wrapped in those flushing tentacles.  I even managed to get some pictures of the female squid carrying and laying an egg capsule in the sand. 

 

There are a couple of other interesting pictures - there was an octo that was holding a squid, and others seemed to be attacking it.  In the end the octo left the scene!  There is also a lot of death.  Why the squid die or how many times they mate before they die, I do not know, but there are many many dead squid on the bottom when the run is done, and that leaves the opportunity for some opportunistic feeders. 

 

Look out for the pictures of the squid that has been caught by two crabs.  It turned into a tug of war between the two crabs.  My favorite is the picture of the swimmer crab swimming away with the body of a squid.  It is not a good picture, but it was quite the sight! 

 

I then looked again at the dead squid in the morning.  There are not many of the aggressive feeding types of crabs on the shores that you normally find in the PNW,  so the bodies can lay there for awhile.  What was interesting was seeing the nudibranch and small snails feeding on the bodies; check out the pictures.

 

All in all, quite the experience.