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Matt Sanner

Snorkel Shelling - Big Lightning Whelk and A Giant Sinkhole






The final haul, prior to being cleaned.


We checked a few places with interesting rocky bottom on the way to our normal snorkel shelling spots. Because the tide was high, it enabled us to get in the shallow water to "Jewfish Sink", a giant sinkhole that is in 4 feet of water at high tide. The hole itself goes down over 200 feet. The opening is only about 20 feet across at the top, but is 250 feet wide at the bottom.


Jean and Nancy had never been, so we wanted to take the opportunity. It's very dark, and lots of silt make the visibility bad, plus swarms of Spadefish and small Mangrove Snapper (though a few keepers mixed in stood out).


It's creepy. It's dark, low-viz, and you can feel the cold water coming up. It used to be a spring, but apparently is no longer pumping out fresh water, but it's features still hold cold water, so the surface of it is a mixture.



Garman, K. & Garey, James. (2005). The transition of a freshwater karst aquifer to an anoxic marine system. Estuaries. 28. 686-693. 10.1007/BF02732907. For the full article on the research done on the feature by USF, see here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226973660_The_transition_of_a_freshwater_karst_aquifer_to_an_anoxic_marine_system


After we fooled around a bit there, we hit our normal shelling spot north of the Aripeka channel.

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