Sunday January 22 - Rockaway Beach: Diving in the middle of winter

The water temperature when we dropped in was 45 degrees Fahrenheit, 7.2 degrees Celsius or 280.35 Kelvin degrees.  Whichever you prefer the fact is the water was cold.  In water we lose heat 25 times faster than in air and at 45 degrees Fahrenheit it's estimated you will be unconcious within 45 minutes.  We dove for an hour.  Why am I throwing out these facts? Because all of this was spinning through my head as we dropped down on the line at 11:40am on Sunday morning with the snow still melting from the storm that kept us inside for the past few days.  The sky was dark with a light, steady rain blanketing the Sound as we swam out to the buoy.

The landscape on the bottom reminded me that we were in the middle of winter.  The visibility was decent at 20 feet and I could follow Steve as we made our way along the line to the reef.  What was absent was many of the creatures we normally see.  The line was devoid of the seaweed that renders it invisible in the summer and the sandy bottom appeared more similar to a garden in the early spring before the growth takes over.  The kelp crabs were sparse and I could count on one hand the number of nudibranchs I saw during the whole dive.  Once we passed the brick pointing to the shallow reef the sandy floor was barren of anything but an occasional sunflower star or crab.

California Sea Cucumber

Down on the main reef the current kicked up and pulled us forward as we tried to stop and photograph an interesting sponge or an occasional sculpin or nudibranch along the way.  The rockfish, ratfish, greenlings, lingcod, sculpins and painted greenlings that we saw just a month or two ago were gone, vanished with nothing left behind to mark there stay.  Looking deep into the cracks and crevices we found the occasional pair of eyes staring back from the rockfish or painted greenling that didn't have enough sense to leave.  Incredibly, the coonstripe shrimp appeared to have multiplied 10-fold and piled one on top of the other with there black eyes staring back when we peered into the cracks lighting the voids between the rocks with our lights.  They didn't venture far from these cold dark homes leaving the front of the reef bare and desolate with even the starfish appearing to sense the barren landscape and not waste precious energy searching for food.

On the way back up the reef Steve was excitedly flashing his light at me as I approached the small rock he was peering into.  At first I saw nothing and couldn't understand what he was looking at.  The crevice was a few inches wide and about 2 feet deep.  The seaweed obscured a good view inside, but then I saw a flash of brown movement.  I looked again with my own light and spotted it, a small juvenile wolf eel gaping at us from the confines of its den.  Its narrow face and long slender body was muddy brown not yet taking on the grey and black coloring with the face of a fat shrivelled apple doll so characteristic of mature wolf eels.  He opened and closed his mouth showing rows of sharp teeth but we had nothing to offer and so eventually moved on.

By the time we came back up the line, did a safety stop and got into shore the rain was coming down in sheets.  I felt so tired I could barely drag myself out of the water and stared at the rocks I needed to walk up wondering how I would get the energy to do it.  Eventually I just put as much gear down as possible and heaved myself onto the first rock then crawled up to the grassy berm and stood up before grabbing my gear and plodded the last 100 feet back to the truck.  I dove in the middle of winter and knew it.