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soon lapsed into disuse. Remnants of the old wooden pier were still
there underwater in 1961, and seeing them brought to mind images of
the bustling activity that must have gone on decades before.
Parallel rows of the stumps of the old wooden pilings stuck out of
the sand. Near shore, where the wave action was greater, the stumps
were either buried or barely protruding, but near the canyon head in
forty feet of water they were six to ten feet high. Although the old pil-
ings had been treated with creosote, the preservative had not penetrated
to their centers, and the untreated inside of the wood pilings had been
eaten away by shipworms. The surfaces of the hollow pilings were com-
pletely covered with beautiful colonies of several di¤erent color vari-
eties of the strawberry sea anemone ( Corynactis californica ).
The beauty of the anemones, plus the hollow nature of the pilings,
gave me an idea: if the pilings could be cut underwater with a hand-
saw, sections could be installed in an aquarium exhibit to show the rich-
ness of life under a wharf.
With a number of scuba tanks of air and the help of John Prescott's
muscle, we cut four nice pilings covered with anemones and abalone
jingle shell ( Pododesmus cepio ). To prevent the life-covered pilings from
drying and dying, we draped them with wet cloths and quickly trans-
ported them back to Marineland. Installed in an aquarium and with
an assortment of wharf fishes added, the pilings looked just like the
real thing. In fact, they were the real thing! One drawback to the new
exhibit was that even after decades underwater the creosote was still
slowly seeping out of the wood where we had cut it. The addition of
a continuous flow of fresh seawater kept the small amount of creosote
from poisoning the animals.
On another dive near the old sunken pier, I was swimming along
minding my own business when all of a sudden something grabbed
my leg. I jumped and looked back to see a foot-long fish with its mouth
firmly clamped on my wet suit-covered calf. I did a proverbial dou-
ble take, and as soon as I stopped swimming the fish must have real-
ized that perhaps it had bitten o¤ more than it could chew. It let go of
my leg, darted back down to the bottom, and ducked into a large wavy
top shell. I recognized the fish as a sarcastic fringehead ( Neoclinus blan-
chardi ). I picked up the shell and popped it and the resident fish into
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