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Wall Diving and the Abyss
Pelagics often emerge from the depths to feed on the smaller
fishes that inhabit shallower water. The wall itself provides
domain for innumerable smaller creatures.
Dive a wall and you know anything can hap- a wall is the marine life. The wall and the
pen. The deeper the wall plunges the great- reef atop it serve as a barrier between deep,
er the chance of encountering a truly remarkable open ocean and the shallower, protected
experience. Sharks and other large pelagics can water on the shoreward side. Pelagics often
regularly be spotted at a wall’s drop-off zone. T emerge from the depths to feed on the
smaller fishes that inhabit shallower water.
Walls are found throughout California and The wall itself provides domain for innu-
their profiles range from those that end at merable smaller creatures. The honeycomb
sand bottoms 60 to 100 feet deep, to seemingly of tiny cracks, crevices and holes that dot a
infinite vertical descents. It is along these escarp- wall provide hiding places and living quar-
ments of the deep reef that the majesty of coral ters for tunicates, mollusks, crinoids, crabs
spires and the magnificence of sponges is fully and other invertebrates of all sizes and
realized. Seafans, bryozoans, seawhips and Black shapes, plus, of course, sponges and coral.
Coral mix and mingle with the sponges, creat-
ing a garden carpet of life. More color and the
addition of motion is provided from solitary and
schooling reef fish.One of the thrills of diving
