Chris' Dive Experiences: The Mythical So Cal Green Sea Turtle "Marine Room", La Jolla

Photo Courtesy of Virginia Hatter

Not all So Cal divers know that our temperate waters contain a couple of iconic animals. Animals that would normally conjure up thoughts of the warm, clear, tropical waters of the Caribbean and South Pacific. But there are a handful of lucky divers that have born witness to both Pacific seahorses and green sea turtles while diving here in San Diego. Lesley and I had heard a few stories over our 4 years of diving of divers seeing a green sea turtle, including Rod & Liz while diving at the Marine Room, but sightings remained extremely rare.

Our local dive site, The Marine Room, is named after the Marine Room restaurant sitting right on the beach, overlooking the ocean in La Jolla. Conditions at this site often vary more than other sites nearby primarily due to the coastal cliffs that surround it. During high tide, or if the surf is up a little, you’ll have waves not only rolling directly in toward the shore, but also waves cutting across as they bounce off the cliffs making it look like a big washing machine. The Marine Room offers two distinct dive options for a diver. You can kick out and to the left and enjoy rocky reefs with lots of life similar to diving La Jolla Cove, or you can kick straight out and catch the beginning of the same walls that you dive at La Jolla Shores.

Lesley and I awoke early on Friday the 13th to meet a group for a dive at Marine Room. When we arrived, we were greeted with clear skies, no surf and picture perfect surface conditions. We kicked out toward the rocky reefs on the left side of the dive site, enjoying the normal chit chat and joking that we had come to enjoy from this group of divers. Previously, Lesley and I had dove the Marine Room, but had always kicked out to dive the walls instead of the reef, so we were excited to see a new area and compare the two. We dropped down and kicked toward the kelp and reefs and I was amazed at how much life there was to see. We enjoyed loads of Calico bass, big and small, coming right up to our mask to check us out. Under almost all the rocky overhangs we found lobster peeking out at us waving their antennae. Spanish shawl nudibranchs and pipefish were found in and on the blades of eel grass. As we continued on we had a big school of jack smelt swim right in front of us.

Photo Courtesy of Virginia Hatter

At this point all of us were having a great dive stuffed with lots of cool sitings. I decided to head for a clump of kelp in front of me, passing just to the left of a huge patch of eel grass, when I heard Lesley’s quacker (which sounds like a duck call underwater) going off right behind me. I turned around to see Lesley frantically waving her hands around telling me to get over and look at something. As I made my way over to the eel grass patch that I just passed, I saw from a distance what I thought was a big halibut or electric eel sitting in the grass. As I got a few feet closer to Lesley I couldn’t believe what she had found, the mythical green sea turtle!

I think all of us were initially stunned by seeing the turtle sitting in our cold green water chomping on eel grass, instead of warm clear water chomping on the green growth found on coral as we were accustomed to. Unlike other green sea turtles that I have seen in warmer waters with their beautiful shiny shells, this one had a thick layer of sand and dirt with a group of barnacles growing on its shell. This certainly worked in its favor as camouflage in the So Cal environment.

We each moved in closer, one at a time, for a good look at the turtle that continued to sit there eating and looking at us. We stayed with the turtle for a good 5 minutes, with divers taking pictures and video before he tired of us and moved on his way. As I looked around with a smile I could tell that this special moment wasn’t lost on this group of experienced divers with high fives and dancing taking place around me.

Seeing special things like this brings a smile to a diver's face and renews the saying, "you never know what you will see”. The pictures you see here are the very pictures taken that day at the Marine Room.