JBL Expedition 2015 – Day 2: The Catalina goby off Avalon Bay.

We had to get up early this morning. The Catalina Island ferry was leaving at 6:15 a.m. But it meant that we got to see a beautiful sunrise, which re-energised us for the coming day, despite our late night.

At 9 a.m. we set off for a day of diving off Avalon Bay, hoping to see the much coveted Catalina goby and to swim with the sea lions. Reaching the first diving location around midday (11 a.m. – 12 p.m.), we immersed ourselves 5 m deep in 21-24 °C cold water with clear visibility. Our first water tests gave us a very low calcium (Ca) value of only 360 mg/l. The underwater landscape was like a monoculture of gorgonians. This probably has something to do with the water parameters. The kelp forests, which had almost completely died out a few years ago, are slowly growing back. The reasons for this widespread decline remain unclear. We were lucky enough to find the Catalina goby (Lythrypnus dalli), a small fish that inhabits the East Pacific from Morro Bay to the Gulf of California and as far as Guadalupe in the west. It gets its name from its first reported sighting near Santa Catalina Island, off Los Angeles. We also came across some garibaldis (Hypsypops rubicundus), who weren’t shy about attacking the divers.

After all the divers had left the water the boat took us to the next diving spot. And because the weather was so fantastic - over 30 °C and with just a gentle breeze - there were no high waves. Reaching the coast of Avalon we jumped back into the water and were able to dive with 3-4 large sea lions. Breathtaking! Three of our group even managed to get as close as 10 m to the animals and communicate with them. The rest of the group was about 100 away and were surrounded by animals. Once all the divers had left the water we continued to the next diving location.

Late in the afternoon we arrived back in Avalon Harbour, took the ferry back to Long Beach (arrival at 7:00 p.m.) and the same day (at 11:59 p.m.) caught the flight from Los Angeles to Tahiti/Papeete. We now had 8 1/2 hours’ time to sleep, and we wanted to make full use of it.

© 13.10.2015
Matthias Wiesensee
Matthias Wiesensee
M.Sc. Wirtschaftsinformatik

Social Media, Online Marketing, Homepage, Kundenservice, Problemlöser, Fotografie, Blogger, Tauchen, Inlineskating, Aquaristik, Gartenteich, Reisen, Technik, Elektronische Musik

About me: Seit Teenagerzeiten mit Aquarien in Kontakt. Klassische Fischaquarien, reine Pflanzenaquarien bis hin zum Aquascape. Aber auch ein Gartenteich und Riffaquarien begleiten mich privat im Hobby. Als Wirtschaftsinformatiker, M.Sc. bin ich als Online Marketing Manager bei JBL für die Bereiche Social Media, Webentwicklung und der Kommunikation mit dem Anwender der JBL Produkte zuständig und kenne die JBL Produkte im Detail.

Comments

A word about cookies before we continue

The JBL Homepage also uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: We require technical and functional cookies to ensure that everything works when you visit this website. We also use cookies for marketing purposes. This ensures that we recognise you when you visit our extensive site again, that we can measure the success of our campaigns and that the personalisation cookies allow us to address you individually and directly, adapted to your needs - even outside our website. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not allow (more on this under "Change settings").

The JBL website uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: Technical and functional cookies are absolutely necessary so that everything works when you visit this website. In addition, we use cookies for marketing purposes. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not (more on this under "Change settings").

Our data protection declaration tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. Please confirm the use of all cookies by clicking "Accept" - and you're on your way.

Are you over 16 years old? Then confirm the use of all cookies with "Noticed" and you are ready to go.

Choose your cookie settings

Technical and functional cookies, so that everything works when you visit our website.
Marketing cookies, so that we recognize you on our pages and can measure the success of our campaigns.

PUSH messages from JBL

What are PUSH messages? As part of the W3C standard, web notifications define an API for end-user notifications that are sent to the user's desktop and/or mobile devices via the browser. Notifications appear on the end devices as they are familiar to the end user from apps installed on the device (e.g. emails). Notifications appear on the end user’s device, just like an app (e.g. for emails) installed on the device.

These notifications enable a website operator to contact its users whenever they have a browser open - it doesn’t matter whether the user is currently visiting the website or not.

To be able to send web push notifications, all you need is a website with a web push code installed. This allows brands without apps to take advantage of many of the benefits of push notifications (personalised real-time communications at just the right moment).

Web notifications are part of the W3C standard and define an API for end user notifications. A notification makes it possible to inform the user about an event, such as a new blog post, outside the context of a website.

JBL GmbH & Co. KG provides this service free of charge, and it is easy to activate or deactivate.