May 19 - Rockaway: 2 feet of viz and it's beautiful

The beach at Rockaway that we normally swim over

The first time I dove in conditions like these I ran through a steel 100 tank in 20 minutes.  The viz was down to 3-4 feet on Saturday and 2-3 feet by Sunday.  This is the one time of year I can swim through a snow storm and night dive in the middle of the day.  White and green plankton hung in the water like large flakes of snow during a spring blizzard.  The tide was out so far that Ehren and I walked out to the buoy before we put on our fins.  The line was at our feet but we couldn't see it.  We eventually found it and zip-lined down to the main reef pulling ourselves along until the sunflower star popped up in our the way.

Moon jellies drifted slowly by along the main reef, their translucent bodies undulating as the current carried them along.  Leopard dorids, on an endless search for food, crept along the rocks.  We checked in the cracks and crevices for the elusive pacific lumpsucker.  Ehren is on a mission to find them but not today.  The search continues.  A male scalyhead sculpin made an appearance and hung out on the rock, we communed together.  A thin brown ribbon like material was on the floor next to the reef and we stared at it thinking it was a piece of trash. Slowly it began pulling itself into a gelatinous casing in the sandy floor.  The body was about a half centimeter across with regularly spaced white stripes every cm and a thin white stripe along the meter long body.  It was a six-lined ribbon worm.

We headed down to the deep reef and ran through a school of ratfish at the second of the three sisters.  Down on the deep reef at 85 feet day turned into night and we headed for a tour around the rock.  I wouldn't let it out of my sight.  Copper rockfish lurked within the hollows and warrens, the octopus was gone.  Sunset slowly turned into day as we headed back to the main reef swimming through the murky green waters of the sound.

The viz had worsened on Sunday allowing for only 2-3 feet before staring off into the void.  The reef had changed overnight.  The thickness of the plankton cast a depressing, dreary light sucking the color out of everything it touched.  The red bands of the painted greenling dulled to brown while the the deep orange of the three-lined nudibranchs was blunted to a light pastel.  Steve occasionally appearing then disappearing back into the mist signaling his location by the distant flash of his camera.  We again headed to the deep reef dropping deeper as the awaiting darkness enveloped us, at least until Steve signaled that he was running low on air.  I could barely make out his hands but trusted something wrong and followed him back up.  Steve still had enough air to look in the crevices and again find a giant pacific octopus in the small rock along the South side of the reef.

Back on shore as we unloaded our gear a Coast Guard helicopter flew low overhead.  The next day we found out a diver drowned off of Blake Island while spearfishing for lingcod.  A gentle rain fell from dark clouds while the satiety of our dive calmed our souls calling us back another day.