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a hundred feet away as clearly as if they had been next to me. It was
the clearest water I have ever seen in any ocean.
On the bottom everything had a beautiful purplish hue. Even fishes
like the painted greenling that as a rule are a mottled reddish color were
purplish. There were lots of rosy rockfish, which are normally quite
beautiful, but here they were truly striking with lavender markings on
their bright orange bodies. I also saw numerous smallish clumps of the
purple hydrocoral.
What struck me also was how clean everything was. There was none
of the sediment that you generally find even on Catalina Island. Dur-
ing storms, this reef must get violently swept by the open ocean swells
that come from far away in the Pacific Ocean, as well as washed by the
prevailing coastal currents. We were fortunate that this day there was
almost no swell to generate underwater surge, which makes diving and
especially collecting di‹cult. It was calm, and we enjoyed the beauty
of this unique place at our leisure.
I never made it back to Tanner. It's probably just as well, as it's un-
likely that a second trip would have had the perfect conditions we ex-
perienced that day. Tanner Bank is forever imprinted in my memory
as truly special.
Weather conditions can make such a di¤erence in a dive. San Nico-
las Island, the farthest out of the Channel Islands, is supposed to be a
wonderful place to dive, but on my one and only trip there a twelve-
foot swell was running. This made the island impossible to dive except
for one spot in its lee, and even there the surge was so bad that visibil-
ity was three feet and we were tossed around like wet rags. Without ques-
tion, it was a long way to go for a totally frustrating diving experience.
EXPOSITION IN MEXICO CITY
As part of the process of granting permits to collect from the Gulf of
California, the Mexican government, perhaps understandably, always
expected something in exchange. One year we hosted marine biology
students from the University of Mexico City, who spent a couple of
months learning the art and science of aquarium-keeping and accom-
panying us on our collecting trips. We always provided the university
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