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.


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