Saturday, August 13 at Rockaway Reef

I met Russ at Rockaway today at 12 PM for a dive.  Russ and I haven't dove together since we went to Nanaimo up North.  I was happy to be diving again in Puget Sound with my dry suit and not in a wetsuit as I did down South at Anacapa Island off Ventura.  That was cold.  Russ was diving in a wetsuit and I don't know how he did it.  The tide was so low we walked out to the buoy.  Normally we swim out to the buoy and drop in at 15 feet, but not today.  We dropped down and as we took off I felt a tapping on my leg.  It was Russ and we weren't ready yet.  We surfaced, fixed his light and my dry suit inflator valve.  I had gone down again without attaching it. 

Frosted Nudibranch

The viz was about 10 feet and I wasn't planning to take pictures although I did bring my camera.  As we headed down the line though I began spotting Frosted Nudibranchs on the sea weed and in the sand.  We made our way along the main reef and it seemed that there wasn't as much sea life as I'd seen a few weeks ago.  The Lemon Nudibranchs were fewer, there were no Ratfish and the juvenile Wolf Eel was gone.  I looked closer though and noticed more Frosted Nudibranchs ranging in size from a cm to a few inches and crawling on everything from the rocks to the Sea Cucumbers.  It was a good thing I brought my camera.

Multicolored Dendronotid

We made it to what I thought was the end of the main reef and Russ and I began looking for the line down to the deep reef.  After swimming back and forth for a bit looking in the sand we went back onto the reef and realized we hadn't made it to the end.  I'm sure this was due to the deteriorating viz and not my excellent sense of direction.  We located the line and went down to the deep reef where the viz wasn't much better.  The Octopus was still gone but the reef, as before, was covered in Rockfish and Ratfish.  We took a quick trip around the deep reef and headed back up the line to the main reef where I found a Mulitcolored Dendronotid.  I actually had no idea what it was and just wanted a picture.

Longfin Sculpin

There are usually a number of small fish on the way back up the reef and this time I stopped to take a look at them.  I always assumed they were just Lingcod and other fry's that had hatched, but in retrospect this didn't make sense Where is Steve when I need him, he knows all the fish and usually points out the interesting ones.  I guess this time I found some on my own and will pay attention more often.  As I was snapping my last picture Russ came up to me with 6 fingers up showing me he had only 600 psi left.  We immediately headed for the line up to the buoy and as soon as we found it Russ headed off ahead of me.  A few times it felt as if I was kicking without making any headway then shot forward towards the buoy due to the tide coming in.  I eventually surfaced and saw Russ walking up the beach.  No worries, we all made it back alive.  And so ended another good dive at Rockaway Beach.