Beating the incoming swell, but not the surge

 Swell model showed a south swell arriving mid=day today.  So lets get out there early!  Which we did, and moored near the harbor so that saved us more time. Vis good at about 80 feet, and we dodged through the structure and headed for the sand flats.  Someone on the boat was hoping for Rubber Duckies out on the sand flats, but it's not quite the season for them yet.

It's been z week for frogfish, and today was no different.  Divers were waving at me to come over to the rock they were huddled around.  I circled around and immediately saw the bright yellow spot on the rock.  

Some of the usual suspects showed up: a Blackside hawkfish, an Orangeband Surgeon fish and an Ornate Wrasse.

Next dive site and immediately under the mooring, even as I was descending and turning on the camer I spy a nice, fat Devil Scorpion.  The surge was so strong I couldn't just hover there but had to shoot as I swung by him.  So I kept rocking back and forth and got a few shots off.  The surge would get worse as the dive continued.

The site we were diving has a lot of nice pinnacles out toward the deep end, and we found them heavily populated with the locals.  Suddenly Doug reached out into the water column.  Up he came with a tiny Trembling nudi.  here it is in his gloved hand.

Kevin found two bicolor nudis on the top of a ledge near the mooring on the way back.  I tried to steady on a rock to get a shot, but the surge ripped me off the rock and even folded up my camera strobes as I tried in vain to  hold on.  Later I saw Laura finding better purchase than I'd had and she probably got the shot so you know it happened.

BAck in an inshore alleyway I found a nice Pacific Trumpetfish and a Whitemouth Eel that looked like the Alien Xenomorph, except smaller and less hostile.