divemaster –
I hadn’t heard of the “shear effect” before, but I’m interested in learning more. Can you point me to a reference? Thanks!
Beruang
In my last post I talked about China Cove which is about 20 minutes south of here. Well, here is a link to a great picture of it looking down into the cove.
BTW: The reddish brown plants on the cliffs are ice plant, and the reddish brown sea-weed in the water is giant kelp :).
‘The beginning calls for courage; the end demands care’
Doobieous, yep & no waves 
Strange that Lover’s Point in PG never gets like that and the point is all rock bottom except near the beach.
Well you being a surfer wouldn’t have much fun there with no waves. But I did swim in that cove area a few years ago and it’s the only place I felt safe swimming in :). Towards the upper left of that picture there’s a cave you can swim through at low tide to another smaller cove (no beach but is about 4 feet deep). The depth of the water in the cave is about 20 feet. Anyway i thought it was nice. There were also no fish at all in the water either.
WAG Alert!
I would think that since Lovers Point gets a lot of mixing from the waves, so you get more nutrients stirred into the water, and more plankton. I noticed around the shore it’s rarely clear past 40 feet or so. I remember El Nino increased the clarity of the bay because it reduced the amount of nutrients, as well as the concentration of plankton too.
Though for a cold water environment, the bay is surprisingly clear since Pacific Giant Kelp needs clear waters, yet the waters have to be full of nutrients for the kelp to grow.
Lest we all forget a basic fact - the blue color (of the sky) comes from atmospheric oxygen’s propensity for scattering the blue wavelengths of the visible spectrum more than any other.
Have we established this as the reason the ocean appears blue at all?
Because water filters light. SCUBA divers learn early on, that the deeper you go, the less of the red end of the spectrum you see. My dive gear is mostly blue and looks fairly normal at depth. But, my fins are bright red and look bluish-purple at depth.
If you fire a red photon and a blue photon into the water, the red photon will be absorbed shortly after penetrating the surface, while the blue photon will be free to bounce off the white sand bottom and come right back out.
In addition to all of the above, I’ll add that those postcards showing the beautiful blue water are best taken where the bottom is light reflective sand. You just can’t get that effect, where the bottom is primarily dark sand, mud, or moss covered rock (as is the case in much of the North). It is also good to avoid the shore near mountains. Silt from mountain runoff is terrible for visibility.
Stephen
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Swimming pool bottoms are white, yet the water in them appears blue, too. Especially on a sunny day.
You say that as if it contradicts something we’ve said…
Stephen
Stephen’s Website
Satellite Hunting 1.1.0 visible satellite pass prediction
shareware available for download at
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Dunno about the whole blue/clean/plankton thing…but what i do know is that the ocean around Key West is marvelously comfortable in February and nasueatingly warm in May. It may look great, but it is so warm it’s disgusting, like swimming in piss. Which would be perfectly alright perhaps if the air were cool, but when you are in a 95 degree steambath walking around, and then get in hot-tub like ocean, there is just no fucking relief and it’s perfectly awful.
No wonder people only go there during the winter.