Great Barracuda

Photo: Christian Amador Da Silva · © all rights reserved

Great barracuda form large hovering schools in the open water of Santa Monica Bay, often clustering at the edge of the whale shark cleaning stations where the activity concentrates smaller fish. Schools of 50 or more individuals are regularly sighted from May through October when the bay's productivity is at its most sustained. Their habit of following the whale sharks creates an incidental multi-species encounter that few dive sites in the Atlantic can replicate.