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.


Follow this link for additional photos
 
  

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

For more photos click here

April 7 - Rockaway: The starfish and spring

Lucas and Flat Stanley

Normally we would have swam out to the buoy at Rockaway but today it was in only 4 feet of water so we walked instead.  Flat Stanley accompanied Katie, Lucas and I on the dive so we could give my neighbors niece a memorable picture from Bainbridge.  As we made our way down the line towards the reef clouds of milky fluid periodically dispersed from the sandy floor.  The clams were randy today. We rounded the reef and our lights illuminated the starfish in their mysterious ritual of reproduction.  As if through an orchestrated signal the sunflower stars were arched up on multiple arms erupting with a stream of opaque fluid from a white ring around the edge of their central mass dispersing gametes into the water column above.  I went to take a picture and the dreaded message appeared on my camera "out of memory".  I couldn't believe it, I forgot to put the SD card back in the camera again.  Trying to delete pictures to free up memory while diving at 40 feet was no easy task and I soon gave up.

A week had gone by and the fish population still hadn't returned to the reef although a new mass of unguarded ling cod eggs was stuffed between gaps in the rock.  I wondered if they would soon become someones dinner.  We lazily swam down to the three sisters passing other sunflowers stars in the same ritual as the one on the main reef and another, still leaking fluid from its ring, was moving along the sandy floor.  Redish-purple tentacles undulated within a small cave in the deepest of the three reefs, reminding me of matriarchs protecting their children dancing and playing in the folds of their skirts in their world under the sea. 

Mosshead Warbonnet

The Southern reef was no less beautiful with green and red kelp blanketing the rock and offering protection to the animals within the protective confines of their homes.  Lucas found the mosshead warbonnet that lives within a crevice on the eastern edge of the structure.  At first it stayed within its protective confine eventually emerging to observe the curious creatures in black with eyes ringed in bright color. Again I ran out of memory and began working to clear it while Lucas patiently waited, blinding the fish with his light.  As our air ran down it was time to head in.  With only 3 feet of water at the buoy it was a long walk up to the log where Katie patiently waited for us to return. 

March 29 and 31 - Rockaway: Changes

It rained all day Thursday, so I thought the water would be all mucked up and the dive would be lousy.  I was wrong.  I left my camera at home so I could get some much needed underwater therapy and contemplate the nudibranchs in the sand and the barnacles on the rocks.  The signs of spring so prominent just a few weeks ago all but disappeared with the green, red and brown seaweed covering the line with ruffled and dimpled leaves being our barometer of impending change.  Only a few copper rock fish could be found on the main reef with even fewer on the deep reef.  A month and a half ago there was a plethora of copper rockfish on the deep reef.  A multicolored dendronotid adorned the edge of the main reef with its yellow tips swaying gracefully with the current.  As Steve photographed I meditated on hundreds of small barnacles covering the rocks extending their feathery feet extending in a rhythmic dance capturing plankton and other detrius for their consumption.   

Monterey Lemon Peal Nudibranch

Lucas, Russ and I returned 2 days later continuing the exploration of the reef for additional signs of spring.  Frosted nudibranchs were scattered among the seaweed that seemed to have grown in number and size from my previous visit.  We made our way around the main reef, fins periodically kicking up the silt on the bottom as we moved to close to the floor of Puget Sound.  Juvenile red rock crabs, no bigger than a dime, raised their claws towards the surface as if in joyful praise for being alive.  An octopus lounging in its den and a copper rockfish part way down the rock were one of the few signs of life as we crawled along the reef.  At the end of the reef I veered towards the line going towards the deep reef until I felt a tug on my fin.  Russ and Lucas were turning around to head back to the line.  The deep lemon yellow of the nudibranchs against the burnt orange of the sea cucumbers attracted my attention.  Lucas found me later contemplating the flowing, translucent cerata of the frosted white nudibranch making its way along the sand.  We headed to the small reef exploring the crevices and holes and finding a mosshead warbonnet deep within its home.  I became cold and we headed back to the beach.

Frosted Nudibranch

Decorator Crab on Anenome

The final dive was along the shallows at 15 to 20 feet heading South.  We were looking for small reefs at the inlet to Blakely Harbor.  We only found sand and turned around.  As you travel from the one small bay to the next along the contour the ecosystems change from rocky at Rockaway to sandy with stands of eel grass then kelp before hitting the Metridium Reef.  Anemones are scattered throughout the dive with feather duster worms of all colors from white to burgundy and brown staying clustered in the small bay South of Rockaway.  They seem to sense the slightest movement in the water and pull themselves inside there calcified tubes before I can get close enough for a photograph.

We ended back at the beach after an hour and a quarter under water.  A bit cold, feet numb and happy for another dive in Puget Sound.