Farnsworth Bank

On Sunday August 5th, a group of 10 divers from our club took a dive boat called the Great Escape to the backside of Catalina (outer side which is more exposed to the open sea conditions). The dive site we were heading for is called Farnsworth Bank, which is a pinnacle rising up from the deep. The shallowest part of the reef is 55 feet, then it drops down to about 300+.

It's usually hard to make it out there since the site is unprotected, and prone to stormy seas, but on this day, it was calm! We did two dives at Farnsworth, and then the boat headed back to the front side of Catalina to do one last dive at a site called Black Rock. It's pretty cool that you can see the bald eagle nests from our boat when heading to Black Rock. It was another great day of diving here in Southern California.



A wall at 100 ft.

Farnsworth is famous for it's purple hydrocorals. They are beautiful!


My dive buddy Jimmy, He's one of those guys who is totally comfortable in the water.


Going back up the anchor line. This is really important, since we're surrounded by blue water, and there is no reference to where you are. It is easy to drift away from the dive site. We don't want to be drifting out there.


A friendly Moray Eel greeted us at about 90 ft.


This photo I took was on the front side at Black Rock. There were lobsters hiding in the holes and in between cracks of the boulders.


Strawberry anemonies were everywhere. Just amazing colors.