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.