69°F VISIBILITY


SURFACE TEMPERATURE: LOW


Water Conditions HIGH


71°F 10'–20'


Small surf and light to moderate onshore breezes will be the story this week, which should set up well with good visibility for divers and snorkelers. It won’t be great for the carving and shredding surfing crowd, but good longboard conditions for those wanting to practice ‘hanging ten’. Boaters should keep an extra eye out for divers near the reefs and channel edges and divers always mark yourselves and area appropriately.


Visibility based on existing conditions and NOAA predicted swell and weather conditions at press time. Check up-to-date daily visibility/ conditions at the San Diego County Lifeguard info line: 619-221-8824


Moon Calendar SUNRISE


SEPT SUNSET


THUR 1


6:24 19:12


LENGTH OF DAY 12H 48M


SAT 3


6:25 19:10


12H 45M


MON 5


6:26 19:07


12H 41M


WED 7


6:28 19:04


12H 36M


Jellies can also be found in Mission Bay at this time of year


the first “pier swim,” where the roughly one- mile course from the beach, around the pier and back, was made in celebration of Labor Day. The swim has gone on now for 86 Labor Days and is considered the longest annual rough-water swim in the West. The swim draws hundreds of people from all levels of ability. The 87th annual Pier Swim will be this Monday at 7 a.m. Though a community event for swim-


mers 12 years of age to folks well into their golden years, the swim is not an easy one for most non-seasoned ocean-swimmers, not even on a flat day. Last year’s swim was high- lighted by heavy surf and some 300 of the 500 entrants were beaten back to the beach for their efforts. Only those swimmers adept and strong enough made the turn and the return leg, where they, too, were unceremoniously dumped back onto the sand by the large break- ers. This year, the long-range predictions look


good for a relatively calm ocean and swim. One problem with so many swimmers,


regardless of conditions, is traffic. Collisions in swimming can be dangerous, especially in a “foaming pack” of thrusting legs and arms in open seas. For this reason, there are lifeguards posted along the course and rescue craft near. For most, this is an activity and not a race, so hanging back and keeping a clear space is an advisable tactic for those not worried about time. It will take a 17- or 18-minute run for the contenders to win, but some take a leisurely hour to make the trip around the pier. The start will be staged to divide the swimmers into smaller groups and reduce the risk of collisions, even so, know that the outside is better than the inside track for the slower swimmers as those trying to establish a fast time will be on the inside and swimming hard.


— Daniel Powell IS EL NIÑO GIVING WAY TO LA NIÑA?


Inshore: The calico catch continues to slide as the rockfish are picking up, seemingly early in season after the last two amazing years in the San Diego area inshore fishery. Yellowtail numbers also fell off dramatically, from over 3,000 to just 848 in one week. This may be partially due to more ¾ day trips going offshore to hunt tuna rather than the Coronado Islands. Schools of bonito and barracuda are still haunting the outside of the kelp beds in 80 to 120 feet of water.


Phyllorhiza punctata, Australian spotted jellyfish


Jellyfish not fish While taking a tour of the San Diego harbor the afternoon of August 16, Neisa McMillin and her tour guide spotted a dozen brown jellyfish covered in white spots. “These guys were swimming around


everywhere,” said McMillin. “I’ve never seen a jellyfish quite like this in San Diego. They were hanging around the maritime museum boats, Star of India, and the Rus- sian submarine.” I sent McMillin’s jellyfish photo to Birch


Aquarium at Scripps and SeaWorld to get their opinions. After seeing McMillin’s photo, Birch Aquarium co-curator Leslee Matsushige, who has years of experience with “jellies,” identified it as a Phyllorhiza punctata, or an Australian spotted jellyfish. “They are usually seen in San Diego Bay and Mission Bay during this time of year,” said Matsushige. “Not uncommon, and they are an invasive species.”


Outside: Yellowfin numbers dropped again to below 3,000 while the bluefin count doubled and dorado slid off a little at well under 200 fish for the week. This, to me, is an indication of a cooling trend, though it may be temporary, it has been predicted to cool back to the normal range for our area this fall as the seas transition from strong El Niño to cooler La Niña conditions. The 2014 and 2015 seasons brought warm-water pelagic species to SoCal waters that are normally found 500 miles south during the summer months. The days of wahoo, shortbill spearfish, blue marlin and opah in US Pacific waters may be


Kelly Terry from SeaWorld, confirm-


ing it was an Australian white-spotted jelly, said, “Because we’re having such elevated water temperatures out there, sometimes species show up that normally hang out in warmer waters.” Mike Price, assistant curator of fishes at


SeaWorld, said that jellyfish are technically not fish and it’s more accurate to refer to them as “jellies.” He said there are 4300 species of jellies under an umbrella of eight families. “Over the last year and a half [this] jelly


has been spotted in San Diego and Mission Bay along with bays up and down the South- ern California Bight [curved coastline from Point Conception to San Diego].” [The] first documented sighting in Southern California was 1981, but in the last 16–18 months we have seen an increase in the numbers observed in San Diego and Mission bays.”


— Julie Stalmer over until the next big El Niño develops.


8/21 – 8/27 Dock Totals: 5,911 anglers aboard 243 boats out of San Diego landings this past week caught 153 dorado, 627 bluefin tuna, 2,528 yellowfin tuna, 848 (3,230) yellowtail, 660 calico bass, 25 sand bass, 3,315 rockfish, 17 lingcod, 69 sculpin, 964 bonito, 110 barracuda, 120 sheephead, 5 halibut, 1 halfmoon, 65 sanddab, 32 whitefish, 1 bocaccio, 1 mako shark, 10 mackerel and 2 striped marlin (released)


WIKIPEDIA/MATTHIAS M.


San Diego Reader September 1, 2016 43


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