June 16 - Shangrila and drift diving through Agate Pass

Shangrila Report:

Visibility:  15 feet and snowing

Orange and White Tipped Nudidbranch

Current:  We weren't swimming back to the line



Agate Pass:
Visibility was poor, current was 3.8 knots.  We assembled on the surface, dropped in the North End at 20 feet, headed South, lost each other within 5 minutes.  The bottom passes by, a movie in fast forward.  Moon jellies dance in the current, tumble in space, are left behind.  I am flying, I am superman, I am weightless, I am an astronaut, I am alone.  Sea life is sparse, pink encrusting sponge covers the rocks, leather stars, red rock crabs, an occasional anemone.  I check and recheck my compass headings, I don't want to end up in the shallows along the bank. The goal is to hit 50 feet and then ascend.  I watch my depth as the world drifts by.  Sea Pens begin showing up in the sandy bottom as the floor descends and the current slows.  It's just a few small ones at first, each a few inches high.  I now use my fins to move along, the sea pens grow both in size and number becoming an unseen forest to the boaters above.

At 40 feet I begin my ascent for a safety stop at 18 feet.  My safety sausage is in my pocket and I allow the reel to drop down.  Pam suggested I leave it in my pocket, but my irrational fear of the line getting stuck as the sausage ascends pulling me with it causes me to let it drop.  I try inflating it with my secondary regulator but forget which button to push.  I inflate it and hang on to the string for my stop.  The last time I was here I had a cheaper safety sausage that required inflation by mouth.  That meant removing my regulator and blowing into a small black tube expelling the air from my lungs.  My ears pressed in as I sunk, my chest burning from lack of oxygen, this may be what it feels like as you drown.  I quickly slammed the regulator into my mouth, inflated the sausage on the surface and vowed to never to use it again.

The boat picked me up and I'm disappointed to find I'm not the furthest along until I found out Steve barely made it past the bridge pilings.  He says he meant to do that, Ben and Erik exchange glances.  The boat heads back to the dock.       

June 9 - Flagpole Point (Hood Canal)

"Okay, I got everyone safely to the surface, you're on your own swimming in to shore".  I listened to Katie shout these words at us while hanging onto the buoy marker.  The current swept past, pulling us towards the South end of the canal.  It was a long swim back.

Copper Rockfish on a Cloud Sponge

The four of us (Katie, Kari, Chris and Myself) arrived at the site early in the afternoon with a strong wind blown current running along the surface.  The plan was to swim out to the buoy, see the sponges, then swim back along the bottom to shore and avoid the current.  We dropped in on the reef with the visibility clearing as we approached the bottom at about 65 feet.  The sponges bloomed from the side of the reef with off-white folds and tubes like cumulus clouds on a warm summer day.  Thoughts of Dr. Seuss swam through my mind. 

Twenty minutes went by and nobody was making a move to swim back towards shore, tank pressure was down to 1800 psi.  The group loosely began to head in towards shore but stopped to look at an octopus so I signaled Katie I was down to half a tank, I wanted to keep moving.  Thinking I told her I was low on air Katie spun around and head straight back to the line.  I thought the plans changed and we needed to conserve air in case we got in trouble swimming back from the buoy.  Swimming along the surface in heavy current I wondered how far I could get swept along before making it to shore. 

The second dive we planned seemed daunting, we went for beer instead.

More underwater photos

June 2 - We don't need no stinkin viz

Katie and I dropped into the emerald green waters above Shangrila Reef, the sun filtering through algae and plankton so thick we couldn't see our fins.  It was a bright spring morning on the surface, it was twilight on the reef.  The current pulled at our bodies as we kicked with our fins struggling to stay in place.  Ready to go in, Pam had us wait 10 minutes for slack, it lasted for a few seconds.

Decorated Warbonnet on Shangrila Reef

Our lights reflected off the plankton, a million diamonds surrounding us, isolating us.  We circumscribed the reef looking for wolf eels and octopi.  A mosshead warbonnet pulled itself underneath an overhang, to narrow for a picture.  I tried sign language to get it to come out, Katie used a wave of her hand.  It rested on a ledge above us blending the colors of its body with the encrusting sponge on the wall and its face with the mossy kelp on the rock.  Ma and Pa wolf eel were in their den.  White flesh torn from Pa's upper lip, red streaks exposed in the open wound.

Katie trapped in the jello

Descending on Devil's Boulder was worse than Shang.  The plankton clumped, disorienting us in our descent.  Below 40 feet the filtered light diminished from an uneasy twilight to the deep black of night.  As we descended, dark boulders appeared from nowhere signaling the bottom.  We couldn't find the line to the reef so we followed a narrow string attached to a rock.  Katie was waiting at the end swinging the broken line from side to side.   Time passed as if in a dream.  20 minutes became 10 and 10 became 3.  Meteors streaked down upon us from the from the night sky above.  It was time to ascend and leave the exploration of this alien world to the others.



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May 19 - Rockaway: 2 feet of viz and it's beautiful

The beach at Rockaway that we normally swim over

The first time I dove in conditions like these I ran through a steel 100 tank in 20 minutes.  The viz was down to 3-4 feet on Saturday and 2-3 feet by Sunday.  This is the one time of year I can swim through a snow storm and night dive in the middle of the day.  White and green plankton hung in the water like large flakes of snow during a spring blizzard.  The tide was out so far that Ehren and I walked out to the buoy before we put on our fins.  The line was at our feet but we couldn't see it.  We eventually found it and zip-lined down to the main reef pulling ourselves along until the sunflower star popped up in our the way.

Moon jellies drifted slowly by along the main reef, their translucent bodies undulating as the current carried them along.  Leopard dorids, on an endless search for food, crept along the rocks.  We checked in the cracks and crevices for the elusive pacific lumpsucker.  Ehren is on a mission to find them but not today.  The search continues.  A male scalyhead sculpin made an appearance and hung out on the rock, we communed together.  A thin brown ribbon like material was on the floor next to the reef and we stared at it thinking it was a piece of trash. Slowly it began pulling itself into a gelatinous casing in the sandy floor.  The body was about a half centimeter across with regularly spaced white stripes every cm and a thin white stripe along the meter long body.  It was a six-lined ribbon worm.

We headed down to the deep reef and ran through a school of ratfish at the second of the three sisters.  Down on the deep reef at 85 feet day turned into night and we headed for a tour around the rock.  I wouldn't let it out of my sight.  Copper rockfish lurked within the hollows and warrens, the octopus was gone.  Sunset slowly turned into day as we headed back to the main reef swimming through the murky green waters of the sound.

The viz had worsened on Sunday allowing for only 2-3 feet before staring off into the void.  The reef had changed overnight.  The thickness of the plankton cast a depressing, dreary light sucking the color out of everything it touched.  The red bands of the painted greenling dulled to brown while the the deep orange of the three-lined nudibranchs was blunted to a light pastel.  Steve occasionally appearing then disappearing back into the mist signaling his location by the distant flash of his camera.  We again headed to the deep reef dropping deeper as the awaiting darkness enveloped us, at least until Steve signaled that he was running low on air.  I could barely make out his hands but trusted something wrong and followed him back up.  Steve still had enough air to look in the crevices and again find a giant pacific octopus in the small rock along the South side of the reef.

Back on shore as we unloaded our gear a Coast Guard helicopter flew low overhead.  The next day we found out a diver drowned off of Blake Island while spearfishing for lingcod.  A gentle rain fell from dark clouds while the satiety of our dive calmed our souls calling us back another day.    

May 5 - Cinco de Mayo at Rockaway

Sculpin

The day was warm.  Visibility on the reef was down to 7 feet.  Once it drops another few feet I'll be happy.  It's disappointing when you can still see your dive buddies.  We dropped in on the buoy line with the plankton thick enough that it was difficult to find the line at the bottom.  We followed the rope down to the reef and I wondered why I had brought my camera.  Lucas was being a good buddy though and shining his light on interesting things to photograph, which I did when I could see them.  A small red sculpin darted out from the reef and caught my eye.  It was patient while I attempted to photograph his good side, but I thought I couldn't get the lighting quite right.  Later on Lucas wanted to know why only one flash was working on my camera.  On the South end of the reef a white and red rose star moved silently along the rock.  Ehren hung out with me on the main reef while Katie, Russ and Lucas went down to the lower reef.  I didn't notice that they left.  Next time I won't sleep 9 hours before I go diving. 

April 28-29: Shangrila and KVI Tower and Rockaway, Oh My

Orange Zoanthids

It's amazing how different the visibility can be within the Sound, even around a single reef.  We dove three reefs in two days.  All of them were different.  One thing was consistent though, the further South we went the worse the visibility became. Our first dive was at Shangrila Reef and I stuck close to the Wolf Eel whisperer, Rick Hatten.  Every time I strayed on other dives I heard about all the cool things everyone else saw.  I wasn't disappointed.  Lenny and I were paired up so we both followed Rick around.  Rick found 5 or 6 wolf eels, I lost count, including the one eyed wolf eel and Ma and Pa wolf eel.  Only Ma came out this time, Pa was in a bad mood.  I was on a search for anything I could get close to, starfish, anemones, nudibranchs.  The spring rains and warm weather brought a bloom of organisms contributing to the burst of plankton diminishing water clarity and limiting our viz.

Red-trumpet Calcereous Tube Worm

From Shangrila we headed South to KVI Towers enjoying hot soup and bread on the way.  I was hopeful the water clarity would improve but that was a bad assumption.  It got worse.  I dropped in along with Lenny, Kari, Hal and Ryan.  I had been here before, the others had not, lead position was mine once again.  If you've read my previous blogs you'll know this is a bad idea.  We headed down the slope in search of octopi.  Part way down the slope I looked back and waited for the others to catch up.  Ghostly figures swimming in and out of focus approached.  I turned around and began back down the slope.  At 70 feet no one else was around.  I continued exploring but only found lingcod and tube worms.  Bright lights slowly appeared out of the gloom with Ryan following close behind.  We stayed together for awhile, then separated and found each other later.  Heading up the slope I followed the markers ending in 17 feet.  An Aleutian Moonsnail crawled along the kelp extending its body as the current swayed it back and forth while Ryan wondered why I kept my face buried in the sand.

Aleutian Moon Snail

Our last dive of the weekend was back at Rockaway with Katie and Lucas and Rick and Jackie and Kelly and Alyssa and Jon and TC and you get the picture.  The water clarity decreased as we approached the reef dropping to about 10 feet of hazy twilight.  I explored the lower reaches of the reef while Lucas and Katie explored the top.  We neared the Southern end with Lucas madly flashing his light to get our attention.  We found our octopus.  A large red male giant pacific octopus was out hunting.  It glided along the rocks aggressively exploring the cracks and crevices with its tentacles flushing out prey as it moved along its erratic path.  Fifteen minutes later it appeared to duck into a rock so I motioned for us to go down to the deep reef.  I didn't really suspect anything was down there to see, I just wanted to go deeper.  Lucas and I circled the deep reef realizing at the end that Katie was not with us.  We shrugged, we swam back to the main reef, we headed North, we found Katie still watching the octopus.  Katie later told us we really blew it going down to the deep reef and is now having recurrent thoughts that won't go away "Still replaying in my head is the octopus flushing out the large, juvenile wolf eel. Intertwined yet rippling past each other like silk ribbons."  Another time and smart enough to stay around when the octopus is out.


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April 21, 2012 - Sund Rock: The algae is back

All week I was planning on the Northwest dive show in Tacoma and then diving at Sund Rock on the way back.  That was the plan until Friday night rolled around and the thought of being in a noisy convention center after being stuck on 2 airline flights earlier in the week just wasn't going to work .  Lenny and I settled on meeting at Hoodsport n dive at 1PM on Saturday, which was fine except I didn't know what Lenny looked like.  Fair enough, he didn't know what I looked like either.  We figured it out.     

Sea Whip

The sun and warmer weather had finally hit the Northwest which for divers here is both a blessing a curse.  Now we can get in our dive gear and into our 45 degree water (that's Fahrenheit not Celsius) without feeling like we were in a refrigerator first.  Once again though the algae and other small creatures are inhabiting the Sound mucking up our pristine 25 foot visibility.  Lenny and I dropped in on the Northern buoy and I immediately became disoriented due to the low visibility and lack of light.  And this is the other problem with the algae bloom, sunlight penetration is severely reduced.  It will get so bad that diving on a sunny afternoon will be like night diving in a dark closet.    This was my excuse for immediately heading off in the wrong direction moving a bit South and missing the northern wall completely, even though the visibility had cleared considerably below 20 feet.  At 50 feet I knew we had missed the wall.  At 70 feet we found the sea whips.  At 80 feet we turned around.  At 40 feet I went South in the completely opposite direction of the wall.  I eventually turned us around and headed North reaching the wall with 1100 psi in the tank.  We never did find the octopus on eggs that John McKenzie mentioned was at the Norther end of the wall, but I had gotten us to the wall and that was good enough.

Stripped Sun Star Eating a Stiff-footed Sea Cucumber

Visibility for the second dive was as bad if not worse than the first.  We made our way over the rocks on the South side of the inlet by feel, certainly not by site, before heading off along the wall.  The nutritious broth we swam though was home to numerous jelly fish fluttering through the cool, murky water.  As we dropped down towards 40 feet the structure making up the South Wall appeared before us in perfect clarity compared to the broth above.  The area was devoid of octopus and wolf eels that are normally abundant in the area.  Nudibranchs and other animals were missing from the landscape.  Copious numbers of plumose anemones, bound forever to the rock, stretched their frilled tentacles while tube dwelling anemones, embeded in the soft sediment, extended their outer tentacles in search of food.  Well into the dive the cold began wrapping its icy fingers around my torso causing small tremors I was helpless to stop.  We turned around and headed back, until feather duster worms provided one final distraction.  Again we entered the murky waters to watch the jellyfish billowing their translucent bodies.  We finished our safety stop and stepped into the sun filled afternoon of a Northwest spring.

Tube Dwelling Anemones

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