Sometimes the worst part about diving is cleaning your gear in the dark. I don't mind cleaning the gear itself but what I do mind is pulling the hose out and putting my hand right on top of a large, squishy, slimy leopard slug stuck to the hose. Yuck. Other than that I absolutely love to dive and can't get enough of it. After a long week of work it's down to Rockaway Beach to meet Katie and watch her molest sunflower stars burrowed in the sandy floor of Puget Sound. One of them did try to turn her into its dinner but I saved her at the last minute before it engulfed the third finger of the left hand. It took awhile to remove the tentacles that didn't want to let go.
The dive itself was fantastic and of course it was the one dive I decided I could leave my camera in the car and just enjoy the dive itself. Sorry Pam, I'll take it next weekend. This week you'll just have to read about it. I was put in charge of leading the dive with a heading down to the main reef then on to the deep reef. Luckily, Ryan, Lucas and I cleaned the line just over a month ago and the visibility was about 20 feet.
The main reef was rather bare except for the hoards of Coon Stripe Shimp in every crack and fissure. Mid way down we found out why. In a crevice cut into a cleft in the middle of the reef was a Giant Pacific Octopus about 6 feet from end to end. Its Mantle was a deep reddish/purple with its tentacles spread out displaying its suckers underneath. The garden was a mess, the Octopus was full. Further down the reef we found a pile, and yes it was a pile, of leopard nudibranchs. The Wrinkled Dogwinkle Snails which were also piled, and found last weekend, had laid down a mass of eggs, yellow and shaped liked ovals with points on each end. We also found a mass of Lingcod eggs that looked like white styrofoam balls stuck in a crack. This was one of the larger egg masses I've seen so I went over to investigate. Katie later told me she was waiting for the Lingcod to ram me in the head, but it didn't and we never saw it.
While the main reef was still bare of fish the lower reef was teeming with them. Copper Rockfish of all sizes were all around the reef and in the crevices within the rock. No Octopus. The swimming anemone that I've wanted to photograph for a long time was thrusting its small orange and white tentacles out, taunting me with its grace and beauty that I would only remember. We swam around the lower reef passing an expanse of Orange Zoanthids covering the rock, their stalks covered in silt. Katie continued to look in every opening convinced we'd find an Octopus. No Octopus so we headed back up the line towards the main reef passing the largest Lemon Nudibranch I've seen, molesting Sunflower Stars and tickling the Plumose along the way.
I was simply curious as to what the sunstars were eating. There was carnage, carnage everywhere. It's not good to be a crab at Rockaway right now. The reef is littered with their shells.
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