Friday December 30 - Underwater scooters - Got Air?

     This was one of the few times I worried about running out of air.  In the end it was not my main concern.  Today was the day to try out the Torpedo underwater scooter (DPV).  After a short rundown on the operation of the vehicle we headed down to the water with a goal of exploring South of the Rockaway deep reef at 100 feet.  The scooters would be perfect for just this sort of operation.  On the surface I used the scooter to get out to the buoy before dropping down onto the line.  So far so good and it seemed fairly intuitive to use.  The plan was for me to take Ryan, Lucas and I down to the deep reef then we'd separate by 5 feet between us with myself in the middle and explore the depths to the South.  Another group of divers headed out in front of us and we periodically went through their sediment trail they stirred up from the bottom.  I led us along the main reef at 50 feet with little difficulty and able to maintain relatively good buoyancy.

     At the end of the main reef we followed the rope leading to the deep reef and that's when I began having trouble with my buoyancy.  I didn't remove weight to compensate for the scooter so I continually needed to add air to the drysuit while equalizing my ears and not steering into the bottom or up towards the surface.  At the deep reef we checked our depth and no deco time, 15 minutes so we could go out 6 minutes then turn around.  We spread out as planned with Lucas taking the lower contour and Ryan on the upper.  It was difficult maintaining the proper buoyancy and I continually settled towards the bottom so I would add more air.  Then I would float too much and dump air with the cycle being repeated again.  This caused me to increase my breathing rate as I was a bit nervous about the situation.   I kept an eye on the bottom and on Ryan to make sure we didn't separate.  The bottom was barren with a lot of sand and silt, but no new reefs to be found.

     After 5 or 6 minutes I checked my air and I was down to 1500 PSI from an initial level of 3200 on a 100 cubic foot tank.  I needed to head back and immediately began thinking of what to do if my air ran low.  I used my fins to gain speed and get up front to gain Ryan's attention and let him know my air pressure and that I needed to immediately turn around.  As we headed back to the deep reef I felt my breathing increase as I knew I was using air much faster than I should.  This only served to increase my anxiety so that when we were back at the deep reef my tank was down to 1000 PSI.  We were only 20 minutes into the dive.  I felt for the regulator of my pony tank for security and headed up the line using my fins for added speed.  500 PSI at the main reef and I couldn't go fast enough to get myself along it and back to the rope heading towards the buoy.

     I held my pressure gauge to watch my air and ascent rate as I went up the line trying to dump air and get to 15 feet for a safety stop.  By this time I figured if I could make it that far I could use my pony tank for the 3 minute safety stop and all would be fine.  My pressure dropped steadily and I hit 194 PSI at 20 feet.  I made it, but unfortunately had neglected to dump enough air and my feet had floated up a bit as I was moving along.  Before I knew it I was in a classic feet first uncontrolled ascent with no way to correct as I had the DPV attached to my BCD.  I broke the surface with Lucas and Ryan following shortly behind.  I later found out from both of them that I had flared myself out beautifully and slowed my ascent as I was trained to do.  I had no recollection of doing that but could only thank my scuba instructors for drilling this into my head.  This still raises my heart rate thinking about it but as pointed out after the dive "All is well that ends well".  It's just slow fins for me right now, at least until my heart rate slows to its normal level.

Wednesday December 28 - Point Hudson

The weather report for Point Hudson on Wednesday was for strong winds with gusts to 24 mph.  Eight of us were heading up there and I didn't want to cancel for just a bit of wind so an early morning email went out that the dive was still on.  As luck would have it the weather forecast for this part of the day was wrong and we had no wind with partial sun. We geared up and headed for the water doing our best to stay together.

Painted Anemone

Point Hudson is an easy dive in many respects with an abundance of life throughout the different habitats we passed through be it a sandy bottom, wood pilings or rocks.  Along the West wall you generally won't go below about 50 feet and on the first dive I didn't drop below 35.  Hermit crabs were everywhere with small fish, starfish, nudibranchs and giant pacific octupii along the pier.  The Barnacle Nudibranchs convened on the wood pilings of the pier in the shallower depths forming trains and bumpy carpets for other small animals to skitter over.  Decorator crabs with their long spindly legs were covered in a soft yellow sponge like material rather than the seaweed usually seen down at Rockaway while Grunt Sculpins abounded on the rocks below the pier.  On a good dive in Puget Sound we may see 1 and possibly 2 but here the rocks were covered with the small creatures.  Their bodies though had more of a greyish tinge as compared to the bright orange and brown colors we saw up in Port Hardy.  The Sculpins were also on display hiding in the giant barnacles with their heads sticking out to watch the divers watch them.

Scalyhead Sculpin

Part way through the dive I lost my buddy Lucas and paired up with Leanne and Russ.  This worked fine for awhile until they decided to head back to the beach.  I followed them part way then found Ben and Steve and hung out near them while exploring the rocks and woodpiles for small animals.  Eventually, Ben and Steve moved on but I didn't notice.  Not a problem, I thought I'd move along the pier keeping it on my right back to the beach.  The problem was I stayed at 30 feet along a sandy slope and the structures I was looking for disappeared.  Not being familiar with the site I headed up the slope to 15 feet did a safety stop then surfaced to gain my bearings.  I was 10 feet from the end of the pier where I wanted to be so went back down for some more fun and headed in along the sandy bottom to the beach.

Juvenile Rock Sole

By the time we were ready for the second dive the wind had picked up and 1-2 foot wind waves were being kicked up in the bay.  This only made the entry and exit a bit more exciting.  On the second dive we headed out towards the dolphins, a number of pilings in a questionable state of repair at about a 30 foot depth and approximately a 100 feet from the pier.  The pilings are covered with beautiful white plumose anemones of all sizes creating an etheral image with emerald green light filtering through from the surface.  On the way back to the exit point we explored the sandy bottom for creatures we don't normally find.  If you haven't done this, you should as you'll find a number of animals you won't normally  find around the rocks or structures.  One of them was a juvenile rock sole about an inch and half long and almost pure white with it's classic coloring just beginning to show up.  Further along in the barren landscape was a Shaggy Mouse Nudibranch resembling a furry grey mouse with a long slender body.

After we exited the water we heard a number of ambulances and fire trucks converging on a pier about 2 blocks down the road from us on main street.  We figured they need something to do and convened as soon as a minor incident was called in. Wrong.  It turns out a body was caught in the pilings below the pier and a subsequent news report identified the body as that of an Oak Harbor woman missing since November 25.  Glad we didn't find it while diving a short ways away.  The deco beer tasted good that day.

Monday December 26 - The Shallows of Rockaway

When diving Rockaway our usual order of the day is to swim to the buoy, follow the line to the reef, explore the reef, head to the deep reef, look for the octopus, back up the line to the main reef, then up the line to the buoy or over to the shallows for a quick look before the air runs low.  Today was different.  We were supposed to head for Keystone but I couldn't get ferry reservations so after a half hour of trying to figure out different places to go we came up with the brilliant idea of heading to Rockaway.  This time would be different, we would stay at 15 feet and follow the shoreline South to the beginning of Blakeley Harbor.  An hour and a half later Lucas and I were pulling ourselves out of the water exclaiming what an awesome dive that was and wondering why we hadn't done it sooner.

Red Dendronotid

The dive itself is not what you would normally think of as spectacular diving.  The bottom is mostly sand with a small outcropping of rocks and a set of reefs towards the end.  You actually pass over the reef structure that goes out to Metridium Reef.  The dive requires patience and an intense curiosity of what is dwelling in the sand and the silt so this makes it a slow, well paced dive.  The deepest depth we obtained was at the last reef that we went down to explore and hit 30 feet for a short period.  It was a good thing we did because it was there that we found the pile of Red Dendronotids that I had previously only seen in books and JC's picture at the dive shop.

Cluster of Small Plumose Anemones

Starting out from the beach the bottom was the usual sandy floor with seaweed, 3-section tube worms (they seem to be dead now), burrowing anemones, numerous crabs and other small animals.  Further along we went around the rocks at the end of the cove leading into the next one where we found scattered clusters of small plumose and rose anemones.  In the sand past the clusters of rocks red rock crabs were buried in the sand while alabaster nudibranchs lumbered along in search of their next meal.  Purple, red and orange starfish were scattered around along with numerous miniature versions of Sunflower Stars about the size of a quarter (these may have been ten arm burrowing anemones) .

We came upon a bed of eel gfass with a school of tubesnout's that scattered as we swam through the class.  The eel grass is important as it houses many juvenile fish and smaller animals making their living in the sand.  It's important to look up from the bottom as well to enjoy the varied jellyfish floating along in the current.  We found the typical cross jellyfish and a small jellyfish called a tube sausage jellyfish which resembles a small spaceship with a red sausage in the center.

Sunflower Starfish

Shortly after the eel grass is the last series of reefs before going into Blakely Harbor.  The reefs run roughly in an East to West direction making it easy to follow any of them down to the lower depths.  Here we found sunflower stars and kelp crabs defending their territory against the invading scuba divers.  As we followed the last reef down we came upon a pile of red nudibranchs swaying with the flow of the kelp.  By this time though we had been down for over an hour, but because of the shallow depth my tank pressure was still half full.

Rose Anemone

As we came back across the last grouping of rocks I came upon the large rose anemone I had found last summer.  It's the largest one I've seen of this type at Rockaway and have been looking for it ever since July.  And so ended a beutiful dive that rivaled many I have done at various other sites.  In this case it was definitely about the journey and not the destination.           

Friday December 23 - Got Crab? Diving at the hood canal

The crab catch and deco beer

A couple of workers from the Hood Canal Bridge stopped by as we were donning our dive gear to warn us "Don't get to close to the bridge, someone always calls it in".  No worries with us, we know what we're doing.  We followed the bottom not paying as much attention as we should have to our depth or direction.  The canal bottom was sand and silt without any structures to provide us our bearings.  Our depth dropped almost imperceptibly until we hit 85 feet.  No crabs.  Katie suggested we go up a bit as our air was dropping and we still had to swim back.  We came upon thick cables we took to be the power and telephone lines running across the canal and began following them back in.  Odd that they were a few feet off the bottom.  Our air was getting low and we were still at 85 feet so we headed to the surface and popped up a third of the way along the bridge.  The cables we followed were part of the bridge structure.  Jaymie's warning came to mind, we moved away from the bridge as fast as possible.  We could have been in some real trouble though if the current was ripping through since we hadn't checked the tidal exchange.  Luckily it wasn't.  For the second dive we stayed near the contour going no deeper than about 50 feet.  Katie threatened to bale on us if we ventured to far and I was clearly not put in charge of leading the group.  Back at the truck our friends from the bridge stopped by again.  They had been periodocally watching us  and wondered if we made it back okay and if we caught enough crab;  They didn't mention our popping up near the bridge.  What do you mean "Do we have enough crab?"  Do we have enough people? 

Sunday December 11- Alki Cove II

Today was one of the most beautiful dives I've done and not for the overall scenery but for the beauty of being underwater.  We began by heading down to the mermaid then it was to be back up to the Honey Bear and the shallows.  The trip down to the mermaid was blase with nothing standing out as exceptional or worth stopping for.  This was a good thing since after I replaced the batteries in my camera it decided to throw out all the settings I had put in.  So I had to reset them as we made our way down to our final depth.  Since nothing was marked this consisted of continually pushing each of the buttons on the back until the proper screens showed up while trying to follow Katie, remember to clear my ears, add air to the dry suit for buoyancy and not run into any underwater structures.  

The Hermit Crap

Katie tickling the Rock Sole

The way back up was different.  The hermit crab was a real poser.  He was sitting out on the silty grey bottom wondering what I was with my large red rimmed eyes, and giant appendage that continually flashed at him.  He was a patient model and didn't retreat into his shell.  After the Hermit Crab the Rock Sole came out to greet us and stayed around for a scratch under its chin,  that is if Rock Soles have chins.  The colors of those fish blend in with the bottom so well we usually just scare them off by the time we come upon them, this one was just friendly.

The Friendly Male Kelp Greenling

After the Rock Sole came the overly friendly male Kelp Greenling.  Usually they are skittish and won't get to close but this one decided we should be friends.  It came up to Katie and looked into her mask, swam down the I-beam, came back around, stopped for another look then took off again; to be repeated many times.  It wouldn't stay still for a photo and as I was about to give up I turned and noticed it flying in from the side.  One last attempt and luck was with me.  He stayed around his territory as we swam off.





The Sea Angels danced in the waters of the emerald sea.  Katie found them and was attempting to get them to perch on her glove as I came up.  They are small creatures about a centimeter in length with small translucent wing-like appendages the length of their body.  They have no shells.  Two of them skittered and fluttered about and one briefly landed on Katie's finger.  I've never seen them here before, they were beautiful. 


 

Saturday December 2 - Bottle diving at Seabeck

We arrived in Seabeck and pulled into the dive site, but according to Lucas everything was different.  A marina was being built that wasn't there before and a large steel barge was in the middle of the bay.  The sandy beach that was easily accessed from the road was filled in with rock.  We eventually found access on the North end of a small  beach.  After a bit of discussion it was decided we'd go for one dive and then see if we were doing another.

Dive site at Seabeck

We headed into the bay and went out on a compass setting of 330 degrees with a return on 150.  Okay, all set and I was the leader since I was the only one with a compass.  A layer of fresh water refracted the light like a million tiny prisms until we got below 10 feet or so.  I honestly don't know how bugs see through compound eyes.  The fresh water from the snowpack also made for a really cold layer of water on the top.   We each had our bags andwere  all set for finding old bottles.

Once we hit 40 feet we turned left.  The bottom was mostly sand and mud making it easy to stir up the silt.  This also made it easy to follow Lucas whenever he went after a crab.  We'd swim along and all of the sudden Lucas was gone with a tunnel of silt to follow.  Crabs move fast but Lucas moves faster.

The mutant crab

The bottom of the bay and much of the sparse plant life was covered with Nudibranchs.  I didn't have my camera but thought I could identify them when I sat down to write this.  The intention was there but the memory wasn't.  I narrowed them down to small with beautiful colors and wished I had brought my camera.

After approximately 40 minutes we decided to turn around and head back to our starting position.  How far we had gone was anyone's guess.  Eventually Lucas and Russ signaled they were running low on air and to turn into shore.  No problem just head back on setting of 150 degrees.  I did that but as we headed back I kept getting off the setting and had to reposition my navigation towards shore.  The strange thing was that we stayed at 40 feet and couldn't get to the upslope.  After another 10 minutes or so our air was getting low enough that we had to surface.  Right next to the giant barge in the middle of the bay. 

The bottle collection

Dinner that night was crab, pizza and beer.  We never made the second dive.