| UNDERSEA VISIONS - underwater photography by Katrina Kruse |
| January 2, 2006: Mukilteo This was my first dive after having shoulder surgery (torn labrum) - it has been about 9 weeks or so! I was kind of anxious to get back in the water and kind of hesitant. After two and a half years of a horrible, aggravated shoulder and 9 weeks of no pain I did not really want to hang pounds of gear off my shoulder joints! Mainly I was concerned about the lovely DUI suit with the zipper that goes from my left clavicle, across my body, across my butt cheeks and behind me to the left hip - yes, I don't want to contort that much any more. There is also a lovely head tilt involved also, and let's not forget the "rock" boots aptly named since all they do is collect little pebbles inside to aggravate me. It is like the princess and the pea (only it is little rocks instead). Enough ranting - I did the contortions, we took off at the little T-dock and headed to the long dock to where the urticinas are. Water quality was very good but very little was out and the long stretches of barren sand/silt made me feel cold sooner. We did see a small stubby squid, a large Cabezone on eggs, a few small sea gooseberries and three ctenophores. They were very tiny, but it is about a month early for the gooseberries. Maybe it will be a good year for jellies! |
| October 13, 2005:Cove 2 A short dive with Bob where we didn't see much - a small grunt sculpin, small octopus and some gunnels. |
| October 8, 2005: Redondo Six weeks since my last dive and partial shoulder dislocation (assumed dislocation that is). I was a little afraid since getting into the lovely DUI suits requires some major shoulder rotation. It did hurt. Then I had a little trouble zipping it up since "self- donning" really isn't if the zipper goes from behind your left shoulder, around your body and behind your left hip. I'm not happy about that. It also requires some big neck tilting. Oh well, I took my time and Bob and I headed into the water. The water wasn't as terrible as it has been on my other dives this year. Not decent though. Hardly worth it. This spot was ok since I haven't done it much. I didn't bring the camera since it had been 6 weeks and I had no idea what was out. There is a lot of stuff down there, and some of it has become "unnatural habitat." There was a metal pipe dive boat that had some nice gunnels hidden in places where the pipe had rusted through. Other than that not much out. One octopus. Very little eel grass and no lumpsuckers or hooded nudibranches which are animals I would expect to see this time of year. It felt good to go out again ...I just hope I don't pay for it tonight and tomorrow. |
| August 26, 2005. Mukilteo This was a dive I could have lived without. Anthony, Dave and Jeff wanted to dive one of the last remaining crab season days to get some yummy crab. I wanted to do my own thing. We went out to the light post on the way to the long oil dock. There were big waves and wind. My favorite. I dropped down so I could cruise the shallows on my way to the trench where the urticinas are. It was diarrhea water again. I had to decide - keep going or ditch it. It had been a long time since I'd been out so I figured I could get under it. About when I was ready to call it I located an urticina anemone and there was a very tiny painted greenling baby and inch and a half long scooting around the tentacles of the anemone. There were three adults around the base, which is where I usually see them. This was the first time I'd seen a baby. I photographed the scene for at least 8 or 10 frames before moving to the next urticina. That made the dive. I did see a small octopus, sailfin sculpins, grunt sculpins and four spot shrimp. I tried to photograph the 4-spots looking down on top of their heads at the weird, rectangular eyes. We shall see if anything turned out...they pop and squirt away pretty quickly! On the way in I was creeped out with the lack of visibility and knowing the big construction barge was bobbing around on the surface nearby. I crawled up the slope by feel trying not to think about it. Surfacing safely I headed back to the van getting jostled around by big waves some more. Did something again to my already screwed up shoulder. |
| August 21, 2005: Cove 3 Another awful dive. Nothing going on. There is always something to photograph but this year is extremely bad. There are always beautiful anemones and this dive produced some. There was also a very clean white lined nudibranch. A big so what if you ask me. What a disappointing year. |
| July 31, 2005: Three Tree North Visibility was marginal and I couldn't do what I wanted to do. No camera. Nothing in the water column. Pretty pathetic dive. |
| July 2, 2005: Three Tree North After our latest wonderful dives I had great hope for decent visibility and good things at one of our favorite or at least most dived spots. No luck. Really crappy visibility -not vomit water, more like diarrhea water. Despite the obvious we did have a long dive and saw several octopus, very nice tubeworms that stayed out (my light didn't bother them at all), lots of mini hermiscenda crassicornis nudibranches on the kelp. I saw a nice Red Irish Lord (photographed the eye), some ratfish. The highlight was a huge Giant Pacific Octopus under some kelp with its eyes all the way open. Since the water was so dense with suspended stuff my light didn't bother it and it didn't shut its eye until after I phasered it. I hope I have a couple clear eye shots. Always hopeful! |
| June 30, 2005: Fresh Water Bay Back for another wonderful dive and LONG swim. This time we went straight for the open area on the outside of the rock. The anemones were spectacular and I focused my attention there while constantly glancing out into open water for jellies and salps and the opportunity for surprise. I found a couple mosshead warbonnets in sponge and tunicate houses. We headed under the kelp and into the cut between the rock and the point. I found and photographed the wonderfully green anthopleura anemones that live in the wild shallows. I must go back for more! |
| June 29, 2005: Fresh Water Bay and Salt Creek Fresh Water Bay is one of my favorite places despite a LONG LONG swim - 30 plus minutes to get out to the rock (and worth every kick if you can do it). The kelp is dense but there is depth at the rock so you have the benefits of diving in the forest but not getting tangled. There were hermit crabs that live under sponges so they look like walking sponge helmets. Crabs were everywhere on very colorful backgrounds of purple and hot pink. Solmissus jellyfish were on impulse power or simply hanging upside down with 8 tentacles raised upward. Clear larval fish and worms were poking or bobbing in the water - squirting when our lights hit them. The Urticinas are the best at this location, the big yellow ones and mounds of pink, red, yellow and white ones scattered on the bottom. There is the rock face covered with little things - tunicates, crab, sponge, warbonnets, snails, scallops etc. Polyorchis jellies drifted by regularly. Just missing nudibranches, oh well. Salt Creek was glorious as well for many of the same reasons, just a little more annoying to dive since it was low tide and shallow. It is always a pain in the kelp beds with surge. Here we had wonderful entries and exits - not the usual rough and tumble. We had another diver - Alan - join us. He didn't mind the slow pace as we waited for Kelp Greenlings in the surf grass and poked around for the small stuff. He directed me to some mating clown dorids which I photographed as they were "doing the act" with organs extended and touching. We also saw another bird underwater. Other than that I was enamored with anemones and jellyfish - what's new? |
| June 28, 2005: Sekui, Sekui and Sekui These were all wonderful dives. The first dive I was pleased to be diving in wonderful kelp forests made up of different kelp from Salt Creek. We dove under forests of Macrocystis integrefolia (Giant Kelp), ribbon kelp, coral leaf algae, corralline algae and surf grass. There was some suspended silt in the water and all over the kelp bladders. There was sunlight streaming from above as well. I tried photographing the gorgeous kelp. There were many Polyorchis jellies, epiactis anemones, mini fish including silver spotted sculpins, abalone, juvenile crab and on and on. The next dive we noticed even more - stalked medusas, a large salp with its pods extending little yellow beaded nets, a bright orange umbrella crab, free-swimming dendronotus iris and a very lavender red irish lord. The third dive had a torn up Cyanea capillata jellyfish that looked like the entry to another world when I looked under it. Longfin sculpins and other neat stuff on the purple encrusting algae. |
| June 27, 2005: Salt Creek At last a wonderful dive! It was so nice to be able to see things! Loads of juvenile crabs free-swimming in the current and little gobie like little fish on all the kelp bladders. The highlight for this area is always the spectacular colored urticina anemones - very red red, and yellow and clean white. No clouds of shrimp which is unusual. Lots of Polyorchis penicillatus jellyfish. |
| June 14, 2005: Junkyard A disappointing dive - not much sunlight and not much life. I saw a couple very large (bigger than 1:6) moon jellies and nothing else. |
| May 18, 2005: Alki Cove 2 and 3 When an area has something good going on I go there until it is over. That is the only reason I am back at the Coves. The first dive I went in at Cove 2 and the jellies were still there but visibility was in the decline even shallow. Dodging clumps of stuff I did what I could. For the second dive I moved to Cove three since a mob of fire fighters/diving police showed up for some drills. Boy macho guys who don't know what they are doing can really murk up an area fast! Disaster! |
| May 12, 2005: Alki Cove 2 twice The plan was to dive Cove 3, but a class was mucking up the bottom. I popped in at Cove two and there wasn't anyone there so it worked out great. I did two shortish dives. The first dive I had a 1:2 framer on and found many specimens that fit. The clear layer was the top 8 or 9 feet. Below that was fish flake land and below that the water was like vomit. It was vomit all the way down to 55 feet or so. The second dive I put on a 1:3 framer and found loads of nice specimens to fit. There were small Lions' Mane jellies, Phacelophoras, Aequoreas, moons, criss cross and the top hats are about over. This is probably the last chance for a while. |
| May 10, 2005: Mukilteo Visibility is clearing up and the lobate comb jellies have appeared in force! Four days ago they were not even noticeable and now they are huge monsters. |
| May 8, 2005: Three Tree North and Junkyard Three Tree was pretty marginal. I was surprised that the visibility was not good. Nothing much out. For a second dive I decided to head north. At the Junkyard the visibility was better, especially in the shallows where I spent most of my time photographing jellyfish! |
| May 6, 2005: Mukilteo Visibility is improving - the hangy bits are now fish flakes and will soon drop to the bottom which will improve things a lot. We saw at least 5 species of jellies, but unfortunately the floaty globs get in the way. We went to the area where they pool up and found a couple nice urticina anemones we usually overlook a little southeast of the usual patch in only 50 feet. Nice sensual mouth areas! Gooseberries, the top hat guys (Leuckartiara), criss cross, thimble guys (Melicertum) |
| May 5, 2005: Mukilteo Poor visibility. Stringy bits hanging. Not many jellies but wonderful urticinas. We headed into the current (a mistake) so we had to work a lot to make progress. Seemed like we would never hit the urticina "field." We did find it and I did my thing before we headed up into the shallows where we saw jellies and larval fish. A highlight was a Leuckartiara (top hat jelly) with a dancing shrimp on it. I tried to photograph it, but they are difficult due to the little swinging frills on the inside of the jelly - always seem to blow out. The little shrimp had red legs and was doing a river dance. I tried to photograph it as the jelly pulsed and twirled and spun around. Time will tell! |
| May 1, 2005: Mukilteo Nice dive looking for jellies and aquarium specimens. Lots of hangy/stringy stuff in the water but better below. We went in at the light post and down to past 80. Nice Urticinas, a large crimson with a greenling under it and many many little shrimp under the Urticinas. A couple lobate comb jellies were around and at the end (when I had no photos left) we saw what I think was a Pelagia noctiluca jelly - not a common thing around here...never seen one but I think that is what it was! There were a couple Aequoreas as well. |
| April 23, 2005: Deadman's Wall I was hoping for jellies and clear water but it was not to be! The visibility is really bad with stringy, hangy stuff in the water. I encountered some jellies on the way out - dead criss cross ones (Clytia gregaria), small Phacellophora, Leuckartiara with silt all over them, Euphysidae, and some Aequorea. We were headed to the wall so I didn't stop long (big mistake). Down and down we went with no wall in sight at 80 feet. Usually we drop down and see it around 75 or so but we dropped down west of the usual spot. My contact lens popped out of my eye at 75 feet and the visibility was terrible and it was dark dark dark. Down we went to 110. I was very disappointed when there were no jellies on the way in. None. Zip. I know I need to stop when I see them and this dive confirmed that, again. |
| April 20, 2005: Junkyard This was a very pleasant dive with jellies!!! Sunshine, calm water and fairly clear but the "hangy" stuff has started up. In the shallows I saw criss cross and top hat jellies as well as very small moon jellies. There were a lot of dead criss cross ones (they don't live long, but I haven't seen them long enough for them to be dying already). Most were 1:1 size, in the top 10 feet except for some larger aquereas that were 40 feet or so and 1:2 size wise. There wasn't much current so I could just float and try to find them. I had a kayak shadow over me for a while so I figured I was being watched or he didn't know what I was so I surfaced, said hello, and went back down. |
| April 13, 2005: Redondo Beach Here is a dive I have done only once before, and I didn't go to the right place. I was going to round up with the Boeing guys for the six o'clock dive, and decided to go earlier to avoid traffic, scope out the place, and do a dive in the sunshine. I did do a dive and did it to the right of Salty's. I dropped into 60 feet on top of a small boat. I kept going at that depth for 30 minutes before moving up to 45 or 50 feet on the way back in. There is a nice slope and the terrain is just like 3 Tree North. At 45 feet there was a lot of junk including buoyancy triangles, a volkswagon, a car made of pipes, a wall someone has started, a compass, a metal statue of a fisherman, towers of light cones, and numerous other boats, stoves and junk. Nothing was out. A good dive for worms and I did see some nice size perch inside the car. Not a single jellyfish which I think is odd. A dive I will do again just because it is easy and there will probably be some eel grass later in the season. I saw a bird at 51 feet...always amazes me. |
| April 10, 2005: Deadman's Wall (aka Lobster Shop wall) This can be a great dive when the visibility is good. I was hunting down stubby squid eggs and jellies. There were lots of jellies in the shallows - the criss cross, top hat and gooseberries. There were stubby squid eggs under some of the ledges but I couldn't get the framer in there. Again they were small, but still a good sign of things to come. |
| April 8, 2005: Mukilteo (north of long oil dock) The original plan was to dip in at the T-dock and travel the usual route, but when we arrived there were lots of people there. Instead we went to the dirt parking lot on the other side of the oil dock and went in just out from the middle of the bay. Lots and lots of sediment and a very nice slope. We traveled downward into a lot of nothing. We went to 70 feet and then shallower since I was on the prowl for jellyfish. We found one "wave" of jellies around 50 feet: ctenophores, gooseberries, aquereas and mini Phacelophoras. On the way in there were some more. Very exciting! They were small for 1:1, but it is pleasing to know they are around and ready to grow! I'd give it another couple to three weeks and they will be out in force! |
| April 3, 2005: Alki Dips Jeff wanted to find the new sunken boat and I wanted something close to home. We headed to the dips. There were small jellies in the shallows...siphonophores, gooseberries, criss cross, aquerea and other ones. All of them were very very small but it gave me a chance to practice getting my lighting right. Some had amphipods riding on them, which always excites me! It is almost jellyfish time! Probably another 3 weeks or so and they will be everywhere! Other than that we did not see a thing. No octopus, no nudibranches, nothing on the bottom at all. Only schools of tubesnouts and perch. The boat was in 35 feet right below where the fishermen cast (little to the left). This was on a 0 tide. |
| April 2, 2005: Alki Cove 3 This was a very nice dive. I hadn't been out in 3 weeks (show and then a cold) and was concerned I wouldn't be able to get down and wanted a spot I could stay shallow in if I needed to, and there are some pilings that break the surface. What didn't we see? First off I was fixated on very tiny jellies - sea gooseberries, criss cross jellies, siphonophores and small aquerea were floating around (1:1 and too small at that). Since Jeff and Anthony were with me I figure we better get moving...next stop was an octopus (we saw 5 or 6 on this dive). We saw a sturgeon poacher, greenling hiding out in urticina tentacles, and then a very nice orange clingfish. Then a ratfish caught my eye. This one seemed "friendly" so I stroked it, then sort of vibrated/thumped its side. It seemed to like this and turned toward me for more. I kept touching it, it would rise or swim in a circle and then come back. I photographed a fin. After that I spotted an opalescent squid pulsing slightly on the bottom and approached very slowly. I took one photograph and then picked it up since it appeared dead. If it wasn't dead it was very near death...hardly moved...was probably just water movement that made it look like it was moving. I placed it down and moved on to a midshipman hovering over the bottom and was just about there when everything got silted up and Junior the Christmas Harbor Seal buzzed in! Junior continued to entertain us for the rest of the dive as we helped it hunt. At the end we saw a small stubby squid. We also saw a very large/long and green pipefish. |
| March 12, 2005: Tree North I did this dive with Bob. We entered and headed to the pixie sticks. There was quite a current and we headed into it which made it kind of annoying. This was a decent dive for tubeworms, and other than that I saw a couple octopus and not much else. Some of the eel grass is starting to grow again but I suspect this will be another marginal year of diving. Hope I am wrong! |
| February 26, 2005: Mukilteo The water was murky brown and muddy when we entered. At depth it wasn't bad, but we're not sure why it is brown - no rain at all lately. Not much around, but we did see a skate, a few octopus and the "field" of urticina anemones which are the reason I dive here (other than jellies). |
| February 21, 2005: Edmonds Underwater Park Cold! Computer read 46 degrees. It was a gloriously sunny day which is why I picked the park to dive. The metridium anemones are heavenly in sunlight. There were cabezone and ling perched on nests all over and made for great photo opportunities with the sunlight behind them. |
| February 18, 2005: 3 Tree North This was a very very cold dive. It was calm at our house, but when we arrived at 3 Tree there were big waves and a lot of wind. Still nothing out. The highlight was a harbor seal (first we have seen during the day) that was diving like a bullet, tugging our fins, shadowing us, and was very interested in our baggie of collected hermit crabs. We saw a bird diving down and when I looked at Jeff he somehow looked longer - that is when I saw the harbor seal. Jeff noticed that I wasn't looking at him and turned to see it. It dove up and down and poked the baggie. Very nice. |
| February 12, 2005: Deadman's Wall Jeff and I headed to Tacoma to try the wall. We saw some notable things, and more importantly we could see - things weren't brown mud like they are sometimes. Visibility was pretty decent and we could see the top of the wall and the bottom extending into the flats. There were stubby squid eggs at several locations and pacific wingfoot snails. We saw a ratfish with a gunnel in its mouth. It was providing one final helicopter ride around the neighborhood I guess. |
| January 29, 2005: 100 foot rock This was a nice dive. Cold but pleasant! The zoanthid anemones on the rock were clean and pretty. We saw a juvenile yellow eye rockfish in the clay banks. Jeff and I headed down to 112 feet straight down from the rock and found a large rock at 96 feet. To our surprise we saw a bed of 5 or 6 crimson anemones. We hadn't seen these at this location before. |
| January 15, 2005: Junkyard This was a boring dive. It is just that time of year. The only good thing was that there were the green physalia nudibranches and the strange pellet like brown ones in the eel grass and silt. We went to gunnel condo-land and no one was there. |
| January 9, 2005: Alki Cove 2 Wonderful night dive with a two harbor seals with us the entire time! Boy did they muck things up. The small one was very fast and the mother was extremely agile. Both used our lights to hunt and we saw the larger one with a large fish in its mouth - not a shiner perch. Very cold. Good water quality but poor visibility. |
| January 8, 2005: Day Island The current was already strongly flooding but got calm about 15 minutes into the dive. Then it continued flooding and ebbed in the shallows. Wolf eels were on eggs, and we saw maybe 7 of them. I also saw a Pacific Wingfoot Snail. |
| December 24, 2004: Cove 2 The cove was absolutely empty at 6 pm. Amazing! I entered the water just before Jeff and as I floated around saw a small head bob up an arm's length away - a harbor seal! It's not uncommon to have them around at night in winter, but this little guy was very close and very loving. It rolled so I could scratch her tummy, then rolled and flapped her fins on the surface for awhile. Jeff had trouble with his HID light (wouldn't turn on) and headed back to the van for the backup. This little guy stayed with me the whole time. She followed us on the surface, followed us the whole dive mucking things up for attention whenever I tried to photograph things it seemed. I wish I had wide angle on the camera, but then we saw an opalescent squid making its "string of pearls" and gathering them into the capsule. I have seen this once or twice before, and finally just figured out what was happening. Perfectly spaced little pearls on a string that are pulled in and packed into egg capsule form. I'd never thought about how the capsule was formed. I didn't realize (until watching it happen in September) that the capsule are fertilized internally by the males' special arms before she parts with and sticks down the capsule. I watched females retract their capsule back into their cavities until things were "right." Very very cool. Then the harbor seal tried to snatch the squid! Ink everywhere and the string was lost. The rest of the dive was spent looking for the big squid egg pile I had seen in September. No Luck. We descended with the seal before I reached my reference point. Oh well, going for the known was the thing to do - a Christmas Seal! A Kruse tradition. We hope. We saw a neat orange clingfish and pygmy size grunts. |
| November 27, 2004: Akumal Mexico (caverns) Unlike the guys, I didn't want to do all the training (a wear double tanks) required for cave diving, and also I am not DIR or GUE tech trained so I'm essentially banned from the club anyway. But...I did do a couple cavern dives and have to admit that if I lived near caves and could do it every month I probably would go through the trouble to do it. There is something inside those dark openings that calls to a few people...I swear I did hear my name ever so faintly... So I did some cavern diving. The first spot was just up the road from Zero Gravity (toward Cancun a few miles). This spot was pretty nifty, but probably the Alki of caverns/caves. After a drive down the long limestone pathway we arrived at the hole in the ground complete with surrounding cliff type walls, stairs leading down to the water hole and a line that people could zip down on and land I don't know where. We were the only people. The cenote itself was a clear turquoise blue. After a dive plan, site map description, procedural things etc we donned gear and slipped into the unnaturally blue water of the sinkhole. A quick buoyancy check revealed that I do in fact have some skills, so off we went. For a little more than an hour we propelled ourselves smoothly near the line moving and up and down with the contours of the geology. This site didn't have major numbers of stalactites or stalagmites but did have some rather large ones as well as things that basically looked like coral heads. It felt very similar to ice diving - the same weird hallucinatory feelings of imaginary openings, sense of time and space etc. As we moved up and down with the geology we traveled into and out of the halocline. A halocline reminds me of Star Trek...when people are beamed aboard and they don't quite rematerialize...that is what it is like. Fred, the guide, had his fins in "normal" fresh water and his body descended into the halocline where it is blurry and "thicker" feeling (also warmer). It looked like he was partly real and partly not materialized. Kind of neat. There was also a temperature difference in each altered reality. Up and down and around and out. Peeking at catfish and urchins along the way. The second cavern was more interesting. We had another hour long dive. The first half hour was on the main line. The spaces were a little more varied here, some narrower then others and it was more decorated. We continued until we saw the "cave" entrance with the big bad Pellegro - Stay Out sign that seemed more to me like an invitation than anything. I watched it for awhile as Fred continued on. I saw a brief flicker of light coming from deep within (I thought). This really seemed like a cave within a cave since there wasn't a direct was to get out of the cavern that you could see. I watched and then turned to continue on. I turned back and a diver was bolting at warp speed with what looked like a couple stage bottles (or maybe just side mounted tanks) along each side - alone if you can believe it. We were still far from an opening in the cavern system by the way. Not wise. I signal to Fred so he knows I am moving aside to let the monster through. We continue for awhile off the main line (where we left a "cookie" by the way) on a side line. After a while we cover our lights because we see the bizarre crystal blue beams if afternoon sun coming into an opening. As close to a god experience as I'll get, but really more like sci fi stuff! We stare for awhile as the beams wiggle and change and continue on. In the faint light I see the little piranha relatives that are cruising with us around our heads in the bubbles. We dive another couple half circles around some other structures, still up and down and around stuff. We meet up with the cookie where we joined the main line for the way out. Then we depart again on a side trip and enter a room that I don't think you could get to without being under water. It had air, you could see all the tree trunks and root platforms (they stop when they hit the water - as if it were solid) and bats! The bats were pretty neat. I think they come in through the little spaces between the rock and the tree trunks and roots. We descended into another underwater tunnel of sorts and after a short bit ended up in the cenote we started in. As we were to rise our of the tunnel we were greeted by 5 or 6 sets of legs kicking frantically...the face of someone diving down and popping back up...local people swimming! Very interesting! The only problem with this area is the restrictiveness of it. All the cenotes are privately owned so you can't really go without a guide (probably wouldn't want to either) Entrance is really a "who knows who" thing. There are some spots I guess most people go to, but you have to have a cavern certificate or take a course etc etc. The same ole certification racket taken to extremes. You could kill yourself going with some of these guys too. So it is difficult. I prefer spots like Papua New Guinea or Bonaire where your plan is YOUR plan, you dive when and where you want and can pick up tanks when you need them. Those places don't have caverns and caves though. With planning - capital P - you could put together a nice trip but it is expensive and difficult and there are other places to go. |
| November 16, 2004: 3 Tree N (c) It seemed late to be seeing a sixgill but I saw one! This dive was pretty boring. Rob, Jeff, Keith and I hovered at depth in one spot hoping to see sixgills. We stayed motionless (and cold) with our lights steady waiting. It was cold and very murky. The guys just waited, I was cold and bored so I went shallower so I could be on the bottom and photograph seastars or ratfish or whatever. I was at 65 feet when I saw it. Just on the edge of my light and coming from the south along the slope was a single sixgill, fairly small, with a jaw broken on its left (when face to face with it). It cruised at a slow pace past me - slow enough for me to get 6 photographs. I signaled, but with the poor visibility Jeff saw my signal but the other guys didn't. Very nice to see one this late in the season - if there is a season. Maybe they are always out there at the edges of our lights? |
| October 30, 2004: 3 Tree N No sixgills. We had heard of people spotting them, so we went to check it out. The worms seemed particularly nice on this night. Gunnels were in the stove and in perforated pipe. Little mini octopuses fighting (don't think they were mating), white nudibranches, a small midshipman, spawning sunflower star, and a very neon pink cabezone. Very nice dive. |
| October 15, 2004: 3 Tree North (C) This dive was a disaster that put us in our place. Very exciting but something not to repeat. It started out with my drifting way off the down spot in very murky water. I didn't want to spend gas deep while working my way back so I went up , swam in and then south and then out and back down. What a disaster. |
| October 11, 2004: Cove 2 We visited 2 or 3 large octopuses, saw a small one, a red irish lord, loads of worms and some nudibranches. Nothing notable. |
| October 9, 2004: 3 Tree North (c) This was a 65 minute dive. It was a creepy one. |
| October 8, 2004: Junkyard The Junkyard was pretty clear. Visibility is not great but the water quality is! There were oodles of gunnels and great nudibranches. There was a giant octopus out in the open, dendronotus rufus nudibranches, grunt sculpins...nice. |
| September 30, 2004: 3 Tree North (c) This dive involved Jeff, myself and Rob. |
| September 25, 2004: Pipeline The Boeing Club met for a treasure hunt at the pipeline. Made for a pleasant afternoon. At high tide we could see sun and everything hiding in the sand. Pretty. 3 Tree North (c) - was a second dive. This was the heads-on-sticks episode. |
| September 24, 2004: Alki Cove 3 This was a pretty dive. Visibility was 30 feet and we could see schools of bait fish swirling in ball patterns above us. There were oodles of perch. Not much was around but with sunshine and clear water it was worth 75 minutes of looking around! |
| September 19, 2004: Brown's Point We headed to the left of the lighthouse off the boat ramp. This area is mainly mud with a slope that levels out around 95 maybe. There were urticinas and crimson anemones and not much else. It is nicer I think at the point if you dare! |
| September 18, 2004: 3 Tree North (c) This was a pleasant and rewarding dive. 4 small six gills. |
| September 14, 2004: 3 Tree North (c) Jeff, Rob, Anthony, Keith and Rob and I were with 5-8 gills. Man oh man! |
| September 8, 2004: 3 Tree North (c) This was a very wild dive with at least 6 six gills. They were in the water column, on the bottom and all over. What an adrenaline rush! |
| September 6, 2004: 3 Tree South Saw a nice jelly cruising by. Not much else. This year has not been good for eelgrass, jellies or much of anything! 3 Tree North (c) for a second dive where we saw 4 six gills or maybe 6. Hard to tell when they are zooming! Lizzie was there and Spotty and Baby. Lots of gill fluffing. |
| September 5, 2004: 3 Tree South Did a nice dive looking for 6 gills...didn't find any. This is the first place I ever saw one (2000 on my birthday). We did see some pretty raggedy lion's manes jellies on the way in. 3 Tree North was the second dive (c). This dive had 5 or more different 6 gills appear: 2 babies, a broken jaw one someone had seen at Owen's Beach previously, 2 mid size ones, a large 7 or 8 footer and all of them zoomed...went into the water column...and foraged on the bottom picking up seaweed and rocks. |
| September 4, 2004: 3 Tree North (c) Another 6 gill we previously had not seen. This was 7 feet or so without any notable marks. Tons of BIG dogfish, a lumpsucker and that's it. |
| September 1, 2004: Cove 2 I figured I had better return for more of the squid event. I spent 78 minutes with them but there were not as many and they were not as distracted. I tried photographing them but it wasn't like the day before! Next dive was 3 Tree North (c) This was an awesome dive with 4 six gills!!!! Sizes were 6, 6, 7, and maybe 8? Very hard to tell it is so exciting! Also saw the first lumpsucker of the season...eraser pencil top size. |
| August 31, 2004: Cove 2 Did I mention that I hate the cove? Now I have changed my mind...as rumored there were hundreds of mating opalescent squid doing their thing. They hung suspended in the water column, one would approach a female and grab her, then they would gang rape her trying to slip their special arm in her mantle. You could watch the egg travel via muscle contractions to the exit near the tentacles. She would then position it at a 90 degree angle in her tentacles and plant it in the mass. Sometimes she would pull it back in. I didn't see dead bodies stacking up anywhere, but I'm sure they were somewhere! Some had very raggedy tentacles. Superb and I had the correct framer (1:3) on the camera! Next dive was 3 Tree North where we saw little octopus and loads of dogfish. This was a "C" event. No six gills. Not much of anything. |
| August 30, 2004: 3 Tree North Janet and I did a couple dives here and had really rotten current (a first) on the first dive - swim swim swim to stay in place. Some nice nudibranches but that is it...that and sunshine! |
| August 29, 2004: Mukilteo Janet was visiting from back east and this was one of the few lesser-current-affected spots we could dive. There was some annoying current but we had a decent dive to the urticina field. On the surface Jeff and I saw a 2 or 3 foot baby harbor seal in the water next to us (could almost touch it). |
| August 28, 2004: Seahurst I was hoping for the glorious sea pens to be up but no such luck. I can't figure out when they are "up" and when they retract, but they were nowhere to be seen. No lined nudibranches either. Did see hooded nudibranches, tritomias, dogfish and a skate. Second dive was the infamous "drag-the-bag" event at 3 Tree North. |
| August 17, 2004: 3 Tree North 6 gill! This one had torn skin on its mid back and was a girl. Loads of small fish around and "stuff on stuff" - hermit crab on a vermilion star and nudibranch on a cucumber. |
| August 15, 2004: Cover 2 Not much happening other than tube worms, sabellid worms, hooded nudibranches, one big stubby squid and an octopus. |
| August 14, 2004: Tatsolo This was a nice dive. Poor visibility as always but there were some dendronitis nudibranches out. |
| August 10, 2004: Mukilteo Lots of little octopuses, hooded nudibranches, sailfins, the usual urticinas, and some little squid that approached me and backed around so they could aim their rear and ink me! |
| July 31, 2004: Weatherwatch Park This is a first dive at this location. On a 15.6 foot exchange where can you go? This is a good spot when there is nothing else. It is a long swim to get to the drop off, but then the drop is steady to where ever you want to go. Just a steep mud bank that looks like it may support nice eel grass beds up top on a good eel grass year. It was fine at low tide. We saw a very large big skate, 3 octopuses - one quite large, poachers and 2 longnose skates. |
| July 29 2004: 3 Tree North Tried my new suit out on a night dive - wonderful! We saw loads of dogfish, hooded nudibranches and a strange flounder that looked naked...oddly white "filleted" looking skin. |
| June 28, 2004:3 Tree North Not much happening at first. The eel grass is still crummy, there isn't anything around - only the lasagna type seaweed in large dirty sheets on the bottom. There were a couple octopus, some little ratfish, and not much else. Then we saw her - the baby 6-gill! Jeff Christianson was with us and had never seen one at 3 tree before (he lives a block away) so it was a real treat! No tags on her. She had beautiful clean unmarred skin and of course the beautiful blue eye. She headed for deeper water (we saw her at 84 feet) and Jeff went deeper and guided her up the slope since we were headed down past 110. Always a treat to see a 6 gill - didn't stay that long, but we were with her for 6 minutes or so. Wow! |
| June 22, 2004: Mukilteo Visibility was crummy AGAIN! This has been a rotten year so far. We did see more egg yolk jellies with fish. The best thing, something we hadn't seen before, was 2 spawning sea cucumbers! They reared up (which we had seen before) and then a couple horns on their heads emitted white milt (I'm guessing). It looked like someone was squeezing a toothpaste tube - it came from one or more of the "horns" like toothpaste and then it flowed over the body as it fell apart. They were both doing the same thing though - I would have hoped one would be doing the egg thing. |
| June 15, 2004: Cove 3 Alki This was finally a pleasant dive. In the shallows there are loads of pisaster seastars. On the kelp were many hermiscenda crassicornis nudis - June is always the month I find them. There were lots of gunnels in the kelp, bright pink and red ones. We saw 3 octopus and schools of fish in the top 20 feet. There were baby pipefish and lots of grunt sculpins - very weird. I took some nice photos of a grunt inside a white plastic pipe. Highlight was a red brotula inside a log with a rock fish. |
| June 2, 2004: Mukilteo Lots of Clingon vessels (lobate combs) and large egg yolk jellies with loads of medusa fish (little tomcods) playing hide and seek in the tentacles and over the bell. Impossible to photograph since they were in the top 15 feet where it was horrid. Again. |
| May 22, 2004:Magnolia Bad vis again. Lots of jellies but so what! Couldn't do anything! Lots of the "top hat" looking ones, some teeny moons and aquereas. |
| May 21, 2004: Junkyard Loads of aquereas and lobates and mitrocomellas. Good for 1:3 if the visibility were good which it wasn't. This is a bad year. |
| May 13, 2004: Mukilteo Bad visibility. Lobate Comb Jellies were twisted into scoops - a behavior I hadn't seen before. Very hard to photograph. Every time I see it I aim the strobe or my light and they go into Clingon cloaking mode. This is a new goal for next year's season - get that behavior on film. |
| May 8, 2004: Lake Washington and Green Lake Lake Washington: Since visibility is crummy everywhere I thought I'd try photographing lily pads. Visibility was poor (as expected) but I gave it a try and will know what angles to use when it clears up and they bloom! Green Lake: This was Rob's idea. Very bad (he redeemed himself with an excellent breakfast spot afterward!). Not a single living thing plant or animal in that lake. The bottom was a gelatinous layer several feet deep and visibility (?) was a nightmare. Cross one off the list! |
| April 21, 2004: Mukilteo Another nice Mukilteo dive. Clytia jellies are out all over, aquereas and best of all a gooseberry with a digesting krill inside it! |
| April 18, 2004: Tatsolo and 3 Tree North Tatsolo:Visibility was poor, but not as bad as at 3 tree. Loads of Pacific Wingfoot Snails folded up like little envelopes. Clygia jellies. The usual burrowing anemones but no dendronotus nudibranches around. 3 Tree: Really crummy vis. Clygia jellies and gooseberries and aquereas. |
| April 4, 2004: Mukilteo Wonderful! First we saw 4-5 market squid cruising around. They would approach and then rocket above us! There were gooseberries, combs, dancing shrimp, small egg yolk jellies and mini siphonophores. I love this spot. We saw the biggest Sea Gooseberry ever with what I thought was a "dancing shrimp" on it - looking closer it was a krill type shrimp tethered by the hair of the gooseberry by its tail. Then it tethered the antennae and then a lobe lifted over the body and pulled it into the top of the gooseberry! Amazing! |
| April 3, 2004: Urchin Rocks and Skyline Urchin Rocks always has crummy vis and today was no exception. It is always nice to see all three urchin types around. The sea cucumbers were very nice and there were loads of chitons and limpets. Skyline is difficult to time but we timed it perfectly! It was its usual wonderful spot with crimson anemones, all 3 urchin types, cup corals, sponges. No candy stripe shrimp unfortunately. Sea cucumbers were particularly nice as were the sponges and hydroid. We saw little black striped "bugs" on some sponge and went down at 3:15. |
| March 27, 2004: 3 Tree North After yesterday's dive I had to go again! Visibility dropped some, but the aquerea jellies, gooseberries and combs were still around but "dirty" with particulate matter. |
| March 26, 2004: 3 Tree North This was a very nice dive - the kind of dive to get excited about! We saw many Pacific Wingfoot Snails and Gooseberries which tells me the jelly season is just starting up! We saw an extremely large octopus out in the open with lovely skin and monster suction cups. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some driftwood tumbling down the slope. Didn't look quite right. The current was moving in a slightly different direction, so I slowly lifted the driftwood to find an octopus underneath and pulling it back over him. He wouldn't let go and was using it for cover! |
| March 14, 2004: Cove 2 I hate the cove. Except when the Harbor Seal trails you! We picked him/her up at the beginning of the dive and she stayed with us until the very end. We saw sculpins on eggs, a crab eating a midshipman, 1 little octopus, 1 market squid and worms were everywhere! Seastars seemed particularly nice probably since they were the only bit of color... |
| March 12, 2004: Edmonds Underwater Park Not much happening. Small combs and gooseberries starting up- some with dancing shrimp on them. I was attacked on the head by a cabezone - didn't see him coming...didn't see an egg mass nearby...was looking at worms! |
| March 10, 2004: 3 Tree North Finally we are starting to see things again! This dive included 2 small octopus, a tiny midshipman, 2 large market squid, loads of worms and Pacific Wingfoot Snails. The highlight was a string of old style xmas lights with a kelp crab hugging every bulb and pecking away at the paint! |
| February 21. 2004: Weathervane Park This was an exploratory dive to 110 feet. There is a nice slope here, but due to the time of year hard to tell if there will be life here or not. I believe there may be nice eelgrass beds here in spring. |
| February 19, 2004: 3 Tree North The water was very clear but not much out. There were frantic worms swimming, sea gooseberries and feeding slipper cucumbers. We saw one big octopus and one very tiny one that could fit into its suction cup...spawning green sea urchins, 1 ratfish, 2 larval fish of unknown identity and the highlight - kelp crab all over some newly dumped and arrange christmas lights. |
| February 12, 2004: Mukilteo The highlight on this dive were the stubby squidlets! They were the size of pencil-top erasers, and squirty little fellas but very cute indeed! We have seem baby market squidlets before, but not the stubbies...be looking for them to settle down and grow so we can see them! We saw the usual urticinas and very cool fresh water burbling up from underground springs underwater making a weird heat-like-looking plume in the water and making the visibility go from clear to fresh-mix. |
| February 7, 2004: Junkyard Very clear water but unfortunately not much to see. It is the boring time of year where nothing is mating, there aren't many eggs to hatch out (other than squid) and things just haven't started rolling. We did see a half-hand size moon jelly (unusual this time of year) and some ctenophores which gives me hope that interesting things lie ahead! Not even any sand dabs... |
| January 31, 2004: Dupont Wharf This was an exploratory dive. We found what we think was the wharf and dropped down heading North down the very steep bank. We found evidence of pilings, but no bottles and very little life. There was a crab festival going on - kelp crab piled everywhere on everything! Next time we will follow the pilings out to a different drop off. Very deep. Could have major current. Odd terrain. |
| January 18, 2004: Fox Island Bridge and Gig Harbor Fox: This is a current affected area, so we planned to be down in the middle of the bridge around 11:50. We descended down one of the footings and found quite a bit of life. The areas between footings were current swept cobble. We saw some really nice color - yellow cup corals, pink all over the rocks, orange coating the barnacles. Some orange pisaster seastars with very pearly beads on them. A nice dive to do again! Gig Harbor - The search for bottles continues! We went in near a sail shop east of the Tides Tavern. Not a place to dive...it is a busy harbor with loads of activity, but since it was pouring down rain, windy and the deep dark of winter we did it anyway. Lots of new bottles and the few Lea and Perrins and Bromos and that is all. |
| January 15, 2004: 3 Tree North Bob and I met for a morning dive. It was very high tide and very clear. We descended on the edge of the slope and then got lured downward. When it is clear I see things I never noticed before - logs, junk, etc. The first thing we encountered was a large octopus in the end of a log. I approached slowly and stayed back. It stretched its eye out and toward me - very pink. I took about 6 photos in 12 or so minutes pausing to watch and wait in between. Very pretty skin. A small flapping thing caught my eye in the water column - a winged pteropod (saw two on this dive) - too small for 1:3. Then a mass of new squid eggs. Piles of eggs - greenling and ling cod. The best thing caught my eye as being strange. I saw something sticking straight up on top of a seastar - turned out to be a ratfish tail! The large ratfish was being devoured (claspers and all) by a ravenous sunflower star. We saw other things, but that was my favorite! |
| January 11, 2004: Titlow Sometimes Titlow is wonderful and other times kind of boring. This time of year it is kind of boring. Since the dolphins have fallen it has changed a lot and many of the critter condos are gone. We did see Mosshead Warbonnets, 2 large wolf eels, a large octopus and my favorite - a sunflower star eating a 3 foot long skate! Of course I had 1:1 on the camera, but still...how many people get to see that? |
| January 10, 2004: Day Island After being safe off the snowy roads it was long overdue to go diving. We headed to Day Island. We descended at 10 of 2 (slack at the Narrows was 2:15) and it had already turned and we flooded to the wall for a nice, current free dive. After 45 minutes or so it started ebbing and we rode it back to the beginning (back eddies here). We saw wolf eels on eggs, octopus, grunt sculpins, sea gooseberries, and the incredible wall structure which is the real reason to go here. We did see a fairly large Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker. |
| December 31, 2003: Mukilteo Rob, Jeff and I ventured in the snow to go for a dive. We went down at the usual spot and saw a little grouping of 5 or 6 mini market squid. How mini? About 1 1/2 inches long. They squirted, inked, jetted, hovered, pelted us for a bit in the beginning. A definite highlight. We saw a couple octopus and the urticinas of course. 4 spot shrimp were plentiful shallow - Jeff and Rob are already counting the months until the season opens. |
| December 18, 2003: 3 Tree
North Now this is more my kind of dive. A very huge green pipefish as a highlight. There were Red Irish Lord's on their greenish egg piles. One was in the north boat on a pile of golf balls. Another was on some metal junk. We saw squid and their egg pile. Loads of gunnels - I mean piles of them writhing around! |
| December 12, 2003: Alki Cove 2 The photographer for the Odyssey Maritime Museum (I will be part of an upcoming show) wanted to photograph the "fab 5 photographers" so we trudged in pouring rain to the cove. Then the clouds and rain lifted and we had a good time. Randy G, Ken B. and I stayed in the water and did a dive - we were in our gear already so why not? (I hate the cove, that's why) |
| November 29, 2003: Tatsolo and Les
Davis Tatsolo: I love Tatsolo! Rob, Bob and Jeff were incredibly bored, but I watched intently as the Dendronotus nudibranches hunted! The last time we were here (November 9) I discovered a Sea Mouse (Aphrodita japonica) which is a honking big polychaete worm!!! I'd never seen one and had Jeff C. at the aquarium identify it for me. Les Davis: Talk about boring. There are only 2 places I consider boring - Cove 2 and now Les Davis. Yes, both places can offer up a good dive from time to time but...I won't be doing this any time soon. |
| November 28, 2003: Mukilteo Pretty clear. Lots of greenlings on eggs, greenlings under urticinas, a big Lion's Mane jelly. We also saw two huge green pipefish! |
| November 17, 2003: Cove
2 I hate the cove. Nothing notable. |
| November 11, 2003: Owen's
Beach This was my first dive at this site. Rob and Bob and I met to give it a whirl. It was a small exchange which is a good time to try new spots. This area is most definitely current swept and we had some nagging current at the end of the dive. We went in around 1:30ish. We descended in front of the parking lot and made our way South toward the covered area. There was a beautiful peach colored urticina anemone and loads of burrowing anemones. There was a good assortment of seastars. Visibility was excellent, especially shallow. We could see the surface from 75 feet. Nice clean pebble and sand. There wasn't much life, but the site deserves a few more dives. A night dive could be neat and I'd like to explore to the North. Might be a grand jellyfish spot. We did see a nice big Moon Jelly (weird, lots of them this year) and a few small aequoreas. |
We dove here to see how the "big wave" changed things. It may have crushed in Ivar's, but all we saw at the T-dock were a couple splintered and fallen pilings. It was a creepy dive that started out dark and got darker (it was a night dive but seemed to get darker and more closed in). We had strange encounters with silt trails with no divers in or ahead of them, no harbor seals or other explainable cause. Things sounded really weird, and the water didn't layer up but had definite blurry fresh water areas and colder areas. Did see a nice greenling tucked under the urticina tentacles (look for this - it is often the case), small octopus, sea gooseberry, loads of herring or other zippy bait fish and everyone was eating everyone else. Weird dive. |
| November 2, 2003: Alki Cove 2 Well, after such an interesting and quiet dive, Jeff made me do it again. Of course there were 8 or more divers arriving as we suited up so we kicked it into high gear to get out of there! The dive was a repeat of the previous night without the harbor seal. We did make it to the I-beams, although I was distracted at the rock pile photographing tons of gunnels in their condos. As I was photographing the first of the divers blasted a deep groove in the bottom followed by the plume of silt. I flashed him, swung my fins to his viewing and pointed out the silt. He either didn't get it or didn't care. I did it again to make the point - look behind you and watch your fins! He was busy playing catch-up with his "leader" I think. Not very enjoyable. I went deeper to get out of the mess and encountered tiny octopuses, more gunnels etc. After a long dive we looked for the dead baby - still there in the shallows. I wonder how many divers had passed over her during the weekend? Very sad to see such a small one dead. No obvious signs of harm or a reason for death. |
| November 1, 2003: Mukilteo Park
Wall and Alki Cove 2 Mukilteo Jeff and I had a very pleasant, very slack dive at the clay wall. My suit problem is resolved (for now) and we were able to have a wonderful dive. No silt. There was a pair of divers in before us who had good buoyancy skills and didn't silt it up - we passed at the south end of the wall. The North end of the wall had an orange juvenile wolf eel poking out of its hole. The entire wall is mud condos with gunnels, sculpins and shrimp living in them. Visibility was good. Alki Cove 2: I usually hate the Cove, but tonight it was wonderful! First off, no one was there, and the silt had settled from the earlier onslaught. On the route to the I-beams we picked up a harbor seal that stayed with us the entire 75 minute dive. We have never had a seal stay with us in deep water - this one did. Usually they cruise round in the 40 or shallower zone, not at 80 or more feet. We enjoyed helping it hunt, and observed all kinds of neat shrimp, a nice moon jelly, a couple decorated warbonnets in a downed piling, stubby squid eggs someone had dislodged from somewhere (now loose on a floating piece of wood), and cabezone. After Rob and Jeff went in I stayed to clear my computer (11 minutes of deco - computer set for air, but I was on Nitrox) so I wouldn't get locked out for the next day. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a sleeping Harbor Seal rocking back and forth like a log on the bottom. I had seen this before. I came up to it slowly from behind and lightly touched its back - it didn't sit up and look at me.....to my horror, there were periwinkles in its eye sockets and the darling baby was dead. Very upsetting and creepy to say the least. |
| October 26, 2003: West Seattle
Junkyard Well, I've had it with suits. I dove with old leaky so I'd be sure I would get to dive! We had a wonderful dive. It was good to have time down (how long we don't know since we stroked it and didn't have computers or bottom timers - oops). I figure we were around 55 feet for 45 minutes or so. Tried to be conservative. The neatest things were Phyllaplysia taylori (totally green nudibranch) on the eelgrass, and what I think were Aeolidia papillosa nudis. Very large shaggy grey guys that I don't ever see! They were laying eggs and eating the anemones living on the eelgrass. Cool! |
| October 25, 2003: 3 Tree North Thought I had the suit fixed. Nope. |
| October 12, 2003: Mukilteo Leaky leaky leaky - flood! I have NEVER had a drysuit flood until this day. The neck seal job that held up on the previous two dives pulled apart in a small area and I flooded to my knees. Squishy, heavy and not very comfortable. A 15 minute dive. At first I thought it was my valve - took off the argon hose...leaked...connected the air suit inflator instead...leaked...just got out. |
| October 11, 2003: 3 Tree South Wonderful dive. To my surprise there were Hooded Nudibranches all over the eelgrass. Some had the gold speckling, and all were of good size and were active feeding. We tootled around and saw a very orange grunt sculpin, and the highlight...a longnose skate! We haven't seen a longnose in a while - usually see the big skates. We watched it, followed it, cruised with it. Nice dive. Also saw two small octopuses. 2nd dive - 3 Tree North Met the chum masters for a hopeful 6 gill dive. No such luck. Had great fun watching the chum disperse and the ratfish coming in after chunks of disgusting stuff. Did see three octopuses, one was good size. It was dark enough, but maybe we didn't let it disperse long enough? I think we need to do it on an outgoing tide before flood. |
| October 1, 2003: Edmonds Underwater
Park 1st dive - I headed to the park for a camera dive prior to meeting the Boeing Club guys for a dive. I went to the end of the dry dock out to the logs looking for candy striped shrimp and found several nice patches of them! I had the 1:1 on, and many of the mini monsters were too big so I got "head shots." Hard to think of a candy stripe as "big" but they were! I took a roll of 36 in about 60 minutes then traveled the slow route back. Forgot my compass so I didn't do too much meandering. Loads of schooling fish - perch, snouts, rockfish. Eelgrass is still intact as was some bull kelp. Time to start looking for lumpsuckers! 2nd dive - I left the camera in the van thank goodness! Dove the dry dock area and out into the flats with Brian and Gary-the-motor-kicker! I have never seen anyone go so fast...his fins never stopped! Due to speed (my being pokey and Gary being speedy) our little trio lost each other several times in no-man's-land - easy to do out there. Nice people. Nice dive. Not as many fish, but it is hard to see stuff when you are motoring! |
| September 28, 2003: 100 foot rock,
Edmonds WA Good visibility! We walked down the railroad tracks to the steps, kicked out to the end of the wharf and descended into the trench. The rock itself was very clean - the zoanthids were very nice and tidy! The highlights at the rock were a vermillion rockfish (haven't seen one here before) and a juvenile yellow eye rockfish! On the way in I saw 5 small big skates! A first to see so many! |
| September 25, 2003: Alki Junkyard,
Seattle This was a scavenger hunt put on by the Boeing Seahorse Dive Club. Very very fun and we didn't find everything on the list! Couldn't believe it! We did have an hour time limit, but still... Visibility was great! Nice dive. |
| September 12, 2003: God's Pocket,
British Columbia Ruth Rocks - This was the deep gorgonian dive. 146 feet deep to be precise. I don't like going that deep, but the reason was pretty good I thought - cold water gorgonians! I spotted a small group at 130 feet, took a couple photos and then traveled to 146 to another patch. Smaller than at Neah Bay, but gorgeous anyway. Little basket stars curled up on them. My computer was still in error mode (wouldn't tell me no deco time) so I headed up for what seemed like an eternity just to get to 100 feet. Then I went a little slower to a safer depth of 60 or so and ended with an hour long dive and plenty of it up shallower. Top snails, nudibranches, jellies and just about everything else. Very nice. 7 Tree Island - This was our final dive. I'm glad we could do this site again! It was a wonderful way to end the trip. Overall this is kind of rugged diving. We didn't select the best tidal exchanges and next time will check that. I don't remember current of this magnitude the last time we came. Visibility was 30 feet, sometimes better - not the 80 feet of the last trip but better than at home! A beautiful spot and we had excellent topside weather. Not a vacation though - a dive trip. It is 12 hours or so from Seattle so it was a long ways to go. Something to do every 2nd or 3rd year. |
| September 11, 2003: God's Pocket,
British Columbia Hussar Point East - This dive was a white dive. Loads of metridiums, Red Irish Lords and jellies (Solmissus and penicilatus). Very pretty and a nice break from the pink of the other dives. Buttertart- This was a nice dive also. Decorated warbonnets, dead man's fingers, ascidians and sponges and corals and metridiums. 7 Tree Island - Hooray! A night dive!!! At my favorite spot, dive three on one spot (I could dive the same spot for an eternity and never "know" it all the way). There was a thick fog. We had to use a flood light to wait and watch for the kelp to rise up so we'd know it was slack. This spot has everything! We saw octopus, king crabs, sand lances, strange star-like anemones, and best of all kelp greenlings that let me photograph their eyes!!! |
| September 10, 2003: God's Pocket,
British Columbia NW Passage Wall (or something like that) - Didn't like this one at all. There was some wind and swell and I knew going in that coming out would be trouble. I didn't expect downdrafts and upwellings to the extent that we found. There wasn't anything different on this dive than on the others, and the current made it extremely difficult to take photos or even look at anything. We'd cruise rapidly along the face of the wall until it indented some and slowed, but often it also pulled you down. Inflating to compensate we'd then get whisked around and then in the opposite direction and then up. Lots of up and down movements 10 feet or more. We dove mix which was a good thing. Unfortunately my computer was set on air, so during our safety stop (9 minutes if I had been on air) there was quite a bit of swell and it went into alert mode when a swell pushed me up past the ceiling. I went down again and did that scenario several times and just called it with four "air" minutes left (didn't owe any time since we were on mix). The computer however went into ER mode (my OLD Suunto didn't lock you out) and this was a pain for the rest of the trip. I had to use it in error mode so I could at least know depth and time down. Had to figure out the no deco time and act conservatively (except for the gorgonian dive). I was not a happy camper when I surfaced after that - an hour long dive...I mean ordeal. Not really pleasant. I skipped the next dive (Fantasy Island) to recuperate. Got warm, sipped coffee and relaxed! The Cove - I was ready for a do-it-my-way dive. I popped in at the cove to photograph the hooded nudibranches (Melibe leonina). They were spectacular! They were very active and had hoods out feeding! There were huge masses of them! There were King Crabs. Jellies. I could have watched the nudis all night! |
| September 9, 2003: God's Pocket,
British Columbia Hunt Rock - My neck seal split so I had to dive my old suit and archaic wet gloves! The suit was fine since I had argon, but wet gloves really suck. The current was whipping! We went down and Jeff had a slight disaster - his canister light caught on the boat and ripped off! The light head and ballast went down down down and he had the canister and cord attached to his bc. He handed what he had up and we went looking for the rest. Strokery - stuff wasn't tucked. Hunt Rock is a rock that nears the surface around 15 feet and then drops and drops way down. He found his stuff and surfaced with it, I continued photographing epiactis anemones. We then cruised to the left - loads of current and huge schools assorted fish. We went down...current. We went to the right...current. We did what the fish did and stayed in the crack and saw purple ring topsnails, epiactis anemones, loads of fish and nudibranches wolf eels etc. Not my favorite dive. I didn't like it 9 years ago either. After surfacing we saw a herring ball and stopped to hop in. Just before Jon hopped in a humpback surfaced mouth up from the center of the herring ball!!! We saw baleen and everything! 7 Tree Island - This was my favorite spot the whole trip! It had a wall, a rocky top with kelp and sand on the inside passage! We saw exquisite soft corals with sterns sea spiders all over them, basket stars, nudibranches, crabs, anemones. The top of the island had rock greenlings, jellies, top snails and assorted anemones. The sand was the highlight for me - sand lances! Our shadows would spook them into swarming. If I went slowly and ran my hand gently under the sand they would stay in the sand but poke out their heads! Very exciting! The flounder and other fish waited for their exit and picked them off as they leaped out and upwards. Anemones had turquoise bases. |
| September 8, 2003: God's Pocket,
British Columbia Hussar Point - This was our first dive of the trip. Loads of King Crab both juvenile and adult and lots of pink soft coral and basket stars. No current. Very pleasant. Browning Wall - /Tons of orange peel nudibranches (Tochuina tetraquetra), and Hermissenda crassicornis nudis, soft corals and basket stars, Tritonia festivas. We also saw Humpback Whales (not underwater unfortunately)! |
| September 4, 2003: 3 Tree North
- Had a very pleasant dive in very good (35 foot) visibility. Lots of kelp and eelgrass. The bryzoans are wonderful this year! Many tiny nudibranches (flabellina or maybe hermiscendas) on the kelp or sea lettuce. A few jellyfish pulsed by with their alien companions (amphipods)- I'm a sucker for those smiling faces! The highlight is that it is definitely hooded nudibranch time - big egg clusters on the kelp and monsters (as well as small ones). A really long dive (76 minutes). |
| August 29, 2003: Seahurst Very nice dive. Sea pens were all retracted but the eelgrass beds were lush and full of hooded nudibranches. |
| August 24, 2003: Mukilteo Nice dive. Visibility was pretty good. Not much happening - lots of tritonia festivas |
| August 12, 2003: 3 Tree North My partner had van trouble, so I headed down for a pleasant 70 minute dive anyway. Not much was happening. There are thick beds of kelp. I headed far north past the usual turn around, and found some nice urticinas and some hooded nudibranches on the kelp. Very quiet and enjoyable dive. |
| August 11, 2003: Mukilteo Rob and I went on the "normal route" almost to the long dock, down to the dip and followed the trench in. No jellies. We found the urticina "garden" and I got some decent photographs. Anemones are still one of my favorite things to photograph - very sensual. Bob joined Rob and I for a second dive. This time I left the camera behind, we went to the long dock and cruised the pilings in and out. Very pleasant! The most interesting thing we saw was Bob chasing crabs...and a ratfish with very strange yellow markings on its head and cheeks. A fungus maybe? |
| August 6, 2003: Alki Cove First off I have to say that I hate the cove. Too many people. Uninteresting bottom. Too urban of an area to start and finish a dive in. But... Rob wanted to go there and there have been 6 gill reports! In we went and down the line to the octopus dens and over to the I beams. Oh well. There are worse things to be doing! |
| July 29, 2003: 3 Tree North Jeff and I did a dive to get rid of a tank with 32% mix. We saw only a few jellies but saw many many dogfish in the shallows. I don't like the way things sound with the helium -- I frightened myself when I heard myself humming! Apparently I hum and talk more than I think down there! |
| July 24, 2003: Junkyard Bob and I dipped in for an afternoon dive on a gorgeous day. Visibility wasn't real great and there wasn't much to see but it was very pleasant. The jellies are very ragged looking and dirty and their alien hitchhikers are getting to the drop off size. |
| July 12, 2003: Golden Gardens
Marina Breakwall Not a very good day to dive - a 15.1 foot exchange in the middle of the day! This however was not your normal dive. Jeff and I met up with John Kessler of KPLU public radio to create a diving "Soundscape" segment. We were to do a regular dive while John recorded all the associated sounds. We picked Golden Gardens hoping the Sea Lions would be on the marker or in the cage but they were not around. Oh well, no barking sea lions! The car backed the boat down the ramp onto rock (it was a -3.2 and we were just about at low tide), let it go with a swish, we started the motor and out we went to dive the breakwall (too much current for the barges). This was exploratory and a different purpose dive, so no camera. We set up, splashed into the water and descended into fairly clear water. Water quality was decent, vis was better than it has been anywhere else, and we had a nice dive. This spot had the absolute best and biggest bed of sea pens I've seen - better than Seahurst! They were as long as my finger-to-shoulder and as wide as my light. Thousands of them! There were lots of jellies. The pens had eggs, and there was the wrestling mat competition - nudibranches stretching out to clean up or consume the pens, and of course the pigpen pile up as they devour them down to the quill. Very much a current dive - I want to try it on a small exchange so I can enjoy it more. |
| July 10, 2003: 3 Tree North What a difference a day makes! It appears that the plankton is lumping up and dropping down which makes everything much clearer! Things should start getting good soon. There were very large crab hitchhikers on almost every egg yolk jelly. Big crab larvae and loads of them. The neatest thing was a Cyanea eating (or at least it caught) an egg yolk jelly. The question is - where did all the jellies go? We went in 30 minutes later than last night, but hardly any jellies... |
| July 9, 2003: 3 Tree North Looking for 6 gills - it was this time last year (actually July 3 is when we saw them). The visibility had loads of "wet feathers" - the hangy stuff that makes for bad images. It was getting clearer though and there were jellies everywhere! We "X-filed" it like last year - suspended mid water column the jellies were all over and had their tentacles spread wide...The best thing I saw was a crab doing the Tarzan thing - beating its egg mass- and all the larval crab swimming and wriggling away! |
| June 21, 2003: Freshwater Bay Decided to skip Neah Bay (big wind). We went home and stopped off at Freshwater Bay (one of my favorite spots). It was low tide so we couldn't launch the boat - had to do the big swim. We'd done it before, and I was hoping for the orange-cupped jellies I'd seen there before. Didn't see a single one, but saw many siphonophores, red-eyed medusas, huge Urticinas and the highlight -- a juvenile wolf eel in the open. She was very orange, burnt orange, and stayed out for awhile. Not the best dive we've ever had there, but how often do you see 20 foot salps and huge octopus out? The wolf eel was a treat since she was young so we have no complaints! We are really lucky to have seen all the things we've seen. Homeward bound and hoping for six gills! |
| June 21, 2003: Curley's Beach and
Freshwater Bay After the previous night's wonderful dive we decided to do it again. The vis wasn't quite as good but was still much better than the Puget Sound has been. It was low tide. We went out to the rocks and had a super duper dive. No juvenile silver spotted sculpins, but there were big ones and a very pink baby cabezone. Rock Greenlings in the surf grass, a king crab near an Urticina anemone, loads of Hermascendas on really nice sponges and hydroids, glassy hydroids, blue sponge, very neat kinds of kelp we don't see in the Sound. Lots of nice backgrounds for photos. |
| June 20, 2003: Curley's Beach (left
of jetty at Sekui) The plan was to go to Neah Bay while the roof of the house was redone. We got up to Sekui on Thursday night. We rounded up with our friends that night and drove the boats up to Neah Bay around 10 on Saturday. We piled in and in a rather stiff wind drove the boats around Waadah Island. We haven't done that much diving out of Neah Bay and there for do not know slack times for specific sites and don't know many sites other than Duncan and Dunce rocks, 7 Fathom Rock. We went to the protected side of Waadah and 3 guys suited up and went in. Jeff and I had one of them tow a float so we could track them - hard to do in current. They had a 50 minute dive and drifted a ways. I was frozen to the core and couldn't do it. I weenied out and went to shore. I wasn't sick though, despite 6 foot swells. Just cold to the bone. Nothing is good enough to make me get in a boat at Neah Bay again - I just don't like it. I'll drive the same distance and go to the Sunshine Coast of BC. Neah Bay - never again. I sat in the car warming up while Jeff went out. They had so so vis and current, but saw Canary, China, Tiger rockfish - nice groups of them. When we went back to the room I suited up so we could go in at the jetty. The visibility was great - the water quality was excellent! It was the night of the Solmissus jellies - they were doing the space glide formation thing (folded up) and I photographed a bunch of them. There were criss-cross jellies also. I had a harbor seal bite my fins and tug on them. There were miniature silver spotted sculpins everywhere - perched on eel grass. We saw a nice octopus in the open hunting. It was truly wonderful! |
| June 16, Edmonds Underwater Park After a week of horribly low tide and big exchanges....after a weekend at the Edmonds Arts Festival....it was time to relax, but...I headed to the Edmonds Underwater Park for a photo shoot. I wasn't taking the photos, the Eastside Journal was...they are doing an article about my photography for the arts section and wanted me in the water with my gear. Tired from Edmonds (where I was all weekend) I met the photographer at 11, donned my gear and walked forever to get to the water. The photographer (I warned him about the -3.5 tide) had to wade out. He managed just fine, and I figured that if I had the gear and camera wet I might as well go for a dive. So in I went and it was wonderful! I expected it to be horrible vis (it wasn't) and I didn't expect much to be going on. I stayed near the first rope and then moved in to the eelgrass as the current picked up (was going up to a 12.6). I saw many tubesnouts, baby Hermiscendas, Crangon shrimp, and had a wonderful 70 minutes or so. When I surfaced a couple bus loads of kids had descended upon the beach for a final end of the year field trip. I made a quick get away! |
| June 8, 2003: Shangrila Reef I really hate being in a boat! This trip double confirmed it - Saturday was flat (we had stuff to do at home) and we went out Sunday - what a difference a day makes! It was very windy. I really hate the wind. The ride to Bainbridge (in the Stroke - our inflatable) was bumpy and the wind was constant. We tied up to the buoy and descended into murk with fish-food-flake water. Bad vis, bad water quality, bad photos. There were loads of sea gooseberries and siphonophores...baby hermiscenda nudis, tritonias and what I will call the "jelly of a thousand faces" - the highlight for me...a jellyfish with a zillion amphipods riding on its bell, so when it pulsed and curled you could see all their faces!!! Hopefully a photo or two will turn out. At this point I was frozen to the core (and sunburned too) and seasick. Doing another dive in yucky vis didn't seem appealing so we went back. I really do not ever want to be in the boat again. |
| June 2, 2003: Mukilteo Visibility was pretty darned good here. I was really excited when we descended. We headed to the area the jellies usually pool up in and didn't find any. We then went our normal route and encountered many Klingon vessels (lobate comb jellies) at depths ranging from 70 to deeper. Interesting. Only lobates and no other jellies. |
June 1, 2003: 3 Tree North Jeff, Rob and I popped in for a dive to check out the visibility and jelly concentrations. Visibility sucked and the jellies were all over! Lots of hangy white snow suspended with many different kinds of jellies pulsing around. All kinds of sizes with many being bigger than 1:3. A few fairly large Lion's Manes and Egg Yolks. I didn't see many hitchhikers but almost every one had a parasitic anemone in it. Would have made for cool photos if the water quality had been better. Still great fun to float around watching them. Lots of the cone heads bobbing around upside down. It was jelly eat jelly...nets spread...and a large tidal exchange pushing them through the water in a feeding frenzy. Small Hermiscendas as well. |
| May 31, 2003: Magnolia Marina Wall Rob and Jeff and I did a dive a the Magnolia Marina Wall today. Rob wanted to capture a ling cod and I was after jellies of course. I hadn't been in since the 15th which is shameful - I was busy making work after the University Street Fair so I would have a good image selection for Folklife. Now that both are done I have a couple weeks before Edmonds and decided to go on a jelly quest. That said, my specific mission is to photograph the cone-head jellies ( Halitholus or Leuckartiara), moon jellies (Aurelia) and siphonophores. We went at low tide slack (low tide is always a mistake) and it was a whopper exchange (11 feet). Big current is always good for bringing in jellies, but the water quality was gunky - the wet feather look - and most jellies were in the top 20 and there was sunlight! Bad for photos. I did photo some cone heads. Lots of different jellies in various stages of clean/dirty and intact/torn up. I did what I could. There were several Hermiscenda crassicornis nudibranchs (seasonal - usually June). The neatest thing was a hitchhiker of course - a jelly with a hermiscenda riding on it! |
| May 15, 2003: 3 Tree North (2
dives) Met Bob at 4 and did a dive in very nagging current heading north. We would swim swim swim to maintain position, and when I would try to photograph and compose a jelly I'd look down when I finished and see the tires that were right back where we started! There were lots of jellies of various sizes - some 1:1 material and some 1:3 and larger (not quite 1:6). I had the 1:3 framer on so I set about photographing the Aequorea spp. and some Mitrocomidae. There are a lot of similar (too me) looking species that I can't tell apart - I do my best! I just love jellyfish! I took all my photos and had plenty of air left so we set about toward the pixie sticks. I found the rope-of-eggs where I last saw mating squid, and a ha! Saw 7 or so more squid making egg capsules and readying themselves to plant them. No way would a framer get close so I just watched in a slightly mesmerized haze! A few small nudibranches swimming. Met Rob somewhere around 8. I was frozen and wind blown but ready and willing! I swapped my 1:3 for a 1:1 and wanted to prowl around for small dime sized or smaller things. Boy did I find them! Everything I couldn't capture on the first dive I photographed on the second: small siphonophores, the "cone heads" (I think Leuckartiara or Halitholus - I'll see when the film is back I hope), Cladonema californicum I think - unusual sighting for here, Eutonina, more criss-cross guys, Proboscidactylidae, Nanomia bijuga. Lots of parasitic anemones inside the bells, and small eraser-head sized fish on the outside. More "dancing shrimp" and hyperiid amphipods as well. A regular hitchhiker's convention! |
| May 7, 2003: 3 Tree North Bob and I went for an afternoon dip. We kicked out until we lost the bottom and descended into 37 or so feet. Yes - the visibility has improved! I immediately was distracted by the Criss-cross jellies, then some egg yolk guys, then gooseberries...then a siphonophore with its air pockets and big red eye spot! Bob was enthralled with his brand new magnifying glass. I took some photos and then we headed south (not the usual route). I was still on jelly alert until I saw a school of fish and headed toward the little cabin cruiser wreck. I lost Bob. Headed down to 90 feet for a while until time ticked away and then back up the slope. I encountered 5 market squid getting ready for love-fest and a couple small octopuses, gunnels and moon jellies with their 4 clover loops. A very pleasant 67 minutes. Sunny day and finally there was stuff to see! Guess I'll have to pop in again tomorrow...at night! |
| May 4, 2003: Alki new spot What do you do on a huge exchange when low tide is a minus and in the middle of the day? Nothing worthwhile! The two spots we thought of were 3 Tree (just did it) and the Alki Coves (I really hate them during the daylight hours). Mukilteo has bad visibility so we ruled it out too. Commencement Bay would be horrid at low tide. So we hopped in the van and headed to the Coves which were crawling with people. We parked, said hi to some friends and drove around toward the Junkyard, but decided to go in way before we got there. We passed Anchor Park and stopped after the steep wall at the first spot you can get to the water. We trudged out at low tide and descended. It was a nice sandy bank with lots of sea pens (small), some schools of juvenile fish, some large sculpins, metridiums, many sea star varieties and not much else. I did see some jellies which is what I was after. A nagging current was irritating, but what can you expect with an exchange like today's? There is a rock pile on top of a pipeline (run off we like to think) and lots of Anthopleura anemones in the sand. Visibility was 20 - 25 feet. Oh, the highlight was a Dendroniois diversicolor nudibranch free swimming. Their egg coils were all over. There were a few small Janolus fuscus nudibranches also - these appear to be seasonal. |
| May 1, 2003: 3 Tree North Very exciting! Visibility was 20 feet maybe? There were baby jellies everywhere: Mitrocoma cellularia (criss cross guys) and Pleuobrachia bachei and teeny moon jellies with the 4 clover leaf shapes in them! Also I photographed a pair of gunnels posing perfectly in a rusted, round metal piece. The highlight was a Red Brotula (Brosmophycis marginata) at around 80 something feet inside a stove where I've seen juvenile wolf eel before. It was bright bright red, with a flat sort of head and would have been maybe 10 inches long if it had been out. No photo. It is on my secret hit list though! |
| April 24, 2003: Mukilteo Lighthouse This was a gang shrimp dive. 10 people. Not really a good dive, just a social one. We were late getting in so the current was romping. We don't dive here enough to really have the timing down and don't like it enough to do the diving required to refine the timing. It was a huge exchange - an 8 foot to a .9 going into an 11.3 - no small wonder that it was ripping! Visibility was horrid all the way down to 110 feet. Shrimpers made it worse. It was too light for squid or octopus to be out so we really didn't see much on our short short dive. We did see some Mitrocoma cellularia and Pleurobrachia bachei (sea gooseberries) - a good sign of things to come! |
| April 23, 2003: Seahurst I joined up with the Boeing Seahorses for an afternoon dive at Seahurst. A lot of people don't like this dive and claim it is boring. When the sea pen beds aren't retracted it is THE place for hundreds of spectacular, 2 foot tall sea pens! I don't know why they are retracted sometimes, maybe it is seasonal? Anyway. Corey and I descended and poked along at a leisurely pace seeing what there was to see. Lots of sea pen "pens" in the sand and the usual feeding frenzy of lined nudibranches, red spiny seastars and vermilion stars attacking and feeding on pens they have unearthed. Lots of egg coils from the Tritonia diomedea nudibranchs (big ones) but couldn't find the egg layers. Usually they hang out in the eel grass, but we didn't find any. We did find several species of nudibranches (this is a good nudibranch spot) including: Aglaja, Anisodoris nobilis, California armina, and monterey dorids. One sea pen had eggs (I'll be putting up an egg page soon) and some of the vermilion stars had scale worms on their undersides. The eel grass beds are in pretty good shape and show some growth starting. There were cappelid shrimp there. A very pleasant 63 minute dive. |
| April 20, 2003: Mukilteo Lighthouse Jeff, Rob, Bob and I went shrimping! The season opened 7 am on Saturday so this was day two of the usually short season. Planned for slack we arrived as it was getting dark and set up. Rob and Jeff had 21/35 and stage bottles - Bob and I planned on going to 100 or so on air. We went down the cobble/sand bank encountering current only in the top 15 feet. We started seeing shrimp at around 50 feet and they got thicker and bigger deeper. Shrimping is pig-pen diving. No camera. We saw a stubby squid and on the way in a very green pipefish...the highlight (until a midnight snack of course that was really around 12:30am!) |
| April 17, 2003: Alki Junkyard Jeff, Anthony and I met at the Junkyard at 6:30. Too early to be a night dive unfortunately, but dark with plankton anyway. The eel grass is starting to grow, and we always check for hooded nudibranches, lumpsuckers, and all kinds of stuff that hangs out in the green blades. After a quick look we headed down the bank and a lumpy rock caught my eye. It looked like mossy hairy stuff at first and then like a frogfish - it was the most gigantic lumpsucker I've seen in my life!!! It was bigger than 3 inches (my 1:2 framer is 3 inches across) and very uncooperative. I really wanted a frontal face shot...yes it was really that huge! Nothing else was notable, but what more do you need to get in the water again? Lots of clean sea pens, small but clean (not like the giants at Seahurst). On the way in I saw one of the tiniest lumpsuckers I've seen - about the size of the writing tip of a pen. It was scooting around on a moon snail egg collar and had the tell-tale teeny-weeny mohawk! Anthopleura anemones in the shallows as well. |
| April 13, 2003: Alki Dips This spot has interesting terrain and I've had some great dives here and some sucky ones. Right now it appears to suck everywhere - very barren. It was my first Trimix dive (21/35). Visibility was bad. In the shallows maybe 4 or 5 feet and deeper it cleared up in the 85 - 110 zone and then got crummy again. We went to 120'. I don't know if I felt any different or not. Rob and Jeff switched to air at 100' for a while to see if there was a noticeable change - Rob didn't notice anything different but Jeff did. I felt the same as usual I think. I wasn't checking my time as much as usual but I didn't have the camera, so I wasn't really doing anything. When I take the camera and go deep I really lose track of time so I check often. Anyway, on computer time I owed 9 minutes of deco so we headed up with one minute stops at 90, 80 etc and had a 46 minute dive (computer cleared). No reason to stay longer - nothing is out! We did see a large octopus in the shallows, lots of snake pricklebacks, poachers, one tritonia festiva nudibranch and at 120' a siphonophore around a 1/2 inch long. It had its nets out and when the HID light hit it it retracted them. Nice find. My sac rate was .37 . |
| April 10, 2003: 3 Tree North I met up with Keith, Matt, and Jon for an early evening dive at 3 Tree. There were already some Moss Bay Divers at the site getting ready to get in. My group showed up and we suited up and went in. Visibility was about 5 feet in the shallows and continued to be horrible all the way down to 95 feet. We pressed on anyway and did manage to see some great stuff! We saw several pretty big stubby squid, a very very pink little octopus, lots of poachers (pygmy and sturgeon) and some Janolus fuscus nudibranchs. My favorite sites on this dive were: a monster midshipman (they should be laying eggs now) and a sunflower star on top of a headless octopus! I followed a crab debris line to a large octopus in a pipe - a sea star was munching on something rather large above this pipe. I lifted the sea star and saw only tentacles with their webbing - no mantle!!! Yuck. Here is a great link if you want to hear midshipman grunts: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/June98/fish/sounds/html |
| April 5, 2003: Alki Junkyard The last dive was so good I had to go back! Everything is better at night, so we went on the cold, rainy and very dark Saturday night and had the place to ourselves. It was very still and a high tide. There is still eel grass here in decent shape, and that is where we started to see things. We must have seen 9 - 10 stubby squids...giants by stubby standards. There was a critter conference of 3 of them. There were several groups of gold dirona nudibranchs mating. An engaged couple (trio I think) was tumbling together in the slightly downward current. Sea pens were "blooming," and the burrowing anemones where glorious. There were a couple Janolus fuscus nudibranches (don't see those that often) and lots of poachers (sturgeon, pygmy and a third kind) out and about. A couple nice ling cod with white markings and the highlight for me - a honking big midshipman! This fish become a favorite last summer when we were "6 gilling" and would see them at 110 feet hanging vertically 40 feet off the bottom! This was doing the midshipman shuffle - the slow hover just an inch or so above the bottom. It was a good 8 inches or so long. Visibility was reasonable considering rain and time of year. |
| March 29, 2003: Alki Junkyard Wasn't expecting much and boy was I pleased! We descended as far left on the beach as you can go and headed North. There is still some remaining eelgrass - first surprise. Then we saw a ling cod egg mass that had been dislodged from somewhere and was under attack by ravenous ratfish!!! Looking closer, I saw (for the first time) actual ling cod hatching!!! They would wiggle wiggle wiggle and their long tails kept them attached before the final breakout. Of course I didn't have the 1:1 extension tube on, but what a thing to see! Just prior to seeing the egg mass Jeff spotted a gold dirona nudibranch in the sand. Very orange and pretty. Perfect for the framer size I had on. Next I saw a clean burrowing anemone with its tentacles nice and swirly - I usually see swirly in current with stuff stuck to the tentacles or clean tentacles with no swirly stuff. I was pleased. Then it was a stomphia anemone with white tips - on a beer bottle unfortunately but oh well. On the way in we saw some small jellies and another Pacific Wingfoot Snail. These are becoming my greatest challenge - to photograph them with the wings out or at least in some kind of neat position! Jeff was bored as a gourd but I had an outstanding dive... |
| March 26, 2003: 3 Tree North I joined the Boeing Seahorses for a club dive at 4pm. I'm not used to doing daytime dives. The group descended and took off at warp speed, and I piddled at my own pace on the usual route I take. Not much going on. A few gooseberries and an unusual shrimp nestled in the Urticina tentacles. Too light out for stubbies or octos. Didn't even see any skates in the shallows. Pleasant dive. |
| March 23, 2003: Magnolia
Marina Boy I had forgotten what a swim it is (and I am known for doing long swims). The current was coming in and the wind was pushing waves toward shore as well, so I got tired, whimped out and settled for the immediate wall (still a little swim). This spot always has lots of different species of anemones that are always clean. Nice for photos. I was extremely disappointed that there were not any jellies (I thought they might pool up in the shallows). We had an hour before boredom set in but did see mini tube worms in the sand and lots of nice, clean anemones. If you ever decide to swim it out to the break wall (a long ways - Rob is the only one who will do it with us) you will encounter the cleanest stomphia anemones with the whitest tips - gorgeous! Also ample ling cod and nice terrain. Probably the nicest area though is the marina wall - very nice anemones of multiple species. |
| March 22, 2003: Mukilteo T-dock and
North I dragged Jeff out in search of the dancing shrimp, knowing the visibility would be poor due to Friday's rain. And it was. In the upper 30 feet you could barely see your hand, but below 35 feet it was ok. The water quality is decent and visibility was alright. We saw small octopi, gunnels in junk, teeny comb jellies, and urticina anemones with shrimp at their bases. Highlight was the attack of the flat worms again. Very cool flat worms with ruffles free swimming in and around our lights. |
| March 20, 2003: Mukilteo T-dock and
North Rob and I met at the SilverCl |