Fisherman's Cove

From South to North Fisherman’s Cove is the second of four very popular dive sites located in quick succession north of the main street beach and just north of Heisler Park in the seaside town of Laguna Beach, California. I have been to this site many times and I was back with my son, Spencer, on September 7th, 2020. The skies were thickly overcast, and it very briefly rained, the air was a bit humid, but the air temperature was pleasant. Our dive was shallow with the deepest point of our 53-minute dive about 25 feet.

This was the Monday of Labor Day weekend and we were just coming off two great dives at Anacapa Island, see my journal post of September 9, 2020: Anacapa Island – The Landing. Spencer and I were of the same mindset, we love diving, we always want to go diving, but this dive was going to be a letdown after the great trip out to Anacapa just two days prior. Wow! We could not have been more wrong. For only the second time in my approximately 200 dives in Southern California we saw a sea turtle!! Very, very exciting. Check out the pictures associated with this journal post.

This dive turned out to be significant for a second, totally unexpected reason. In the associated pictures you can see that I took a photo of an orange mass. What is this orange mass? I thoroughly enjoy posting my photographs to the INaturalist website. However, I don’t like it when my contribution is left in the status of “Needs ID”. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why I dislike the “Needs ID” status, but most basically I feel like I am being ignored, somebody out there knows what it is but just won’t take the time to tell me. I also feel like something is being left undone. I must also acknowledge that I have suffered from a lifelong need for validation.

With all of this in mind, and with Spencer’s help, we looked over the INaturalist website to identify the orange mass through simple comparisons. After some searching and comparing, I settled on “Chain Tunicate” as the best identification. I reached out to a frequent identifier and asked for confirmation of my ID. The response was noncommittal but, in her estimation, my proposed identification “appeared correct.” Still left in the status of “Needs ID” I reached out to a second identifier who gave a very technical response with a suggested identification of “mushroom tunicate”, his suggested identification came with a second suggestion which was to reach out to a third identifier. Admittedly I was out of my league with respect to understanding the technical explanation that was given to me but I was certainly persuaded that “mushroom tunicate” was the correct ID and I thus agreed with the suggested ID of mushroom tunicate. My agreement brought my photograph of the orange mass out of the lowly depths of “Needs ID” to the venerated status of “research grade”.

Naturally I agreed to the “mushroom tunicate” suggested identification before hearing back from the third identifier, who naturally disagreed with the suggested ID of “mushroom tunicate”. Most importantly, and where this saga really begins, is that the third identifier politely scolded me for agreeing with the suggested ID of “mushroom tunicate” when I admittedly had no idea of what I was talking about.

Wow – now what? Questions, questions. How can I become a more responsible participant and contributor to the INaturalist website? How do I “up my game” to be technically competent? And most alarmingly, how do I get comfortable with the status of “needs ID”? I mean after all, this quest started when the image on my photograph needed ID. Now I as whole being am in “Needs ID” status. Answers to these questions will be a work in progress -- yes more journal posts in the future.

Be sure of one thing, the green sea turtle, if that is what it really was, was very cool.

Posted on 10 September, 2020 18:12 by darrellsdives