Northwest Dive Club

So I just took a scooter workshop, and now the scooter crack has taken hold. I'm thinking of buying a scooter, but it seems like, for most scooters, you'll be spending around $1300 every two years or so on a new battery. Amortized (?), put away $50/month into a savings/scuba fund, and I guess it wou...

I think user-replaceable neck seals are less about save-a-dive type experiences, and more about waiting the X weeks it takes for the dive shop to replace the seals for you.

The Breakwater is really best as a night dive. Eighty bajillion kinds of rockfish, perch, and if you're really good at looking into crevices, a masked prickleback or two!

The best diving is imho, in Carmel though. Much better viz, though I think a lot of the dives are boat dives.

No prob, and nice video! On the bright side, I saw an ochre star on the honey bear tonight, two stimpsoni somewhere between the I-Beams and Ganesh, two spiny pink stars on the dolphins and I-beams, and 15+ mottled stars. I also saw a vermillion star (and rockfish) and a spiny red star, but those spe...

As far as markers, I was thinking about diving Alki Junkyard on a regular basis. The line there can be used as a transect pretty easily I think. Anyone interested in doing a night dive there on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday? LCF? Also, Laura, are you doing the Cove 1 dive this weekend? When? I'd be...

The thing that's been keeping me from doing sea star surveys regularly is lack of a dive buddy who's interested I'm doing a survey dive specifically. The transects seem like a more intensive survey method than the REEF surveys I'm used to. That said, is anyone on this thread interested in a dive bud...

There were a decent amount (15-20 ish) of mottled stars at Saltwater State Park today, and one rose star. One baby sunflower in the shallows.

One of the mottled stars looked semi-deflated, the rest looked healthy.

One spiny pink star, one sunflower star, one not great looking leather star, 3-ish healthy looking ochre stars, 3-5 stimpson's, one sand star(Luidia foliolata), 4-ish mottled stars (Evasterias troschelii)

All at Cove 2.

I'm thinking bay goby. Blackeyes have a dark spot on the dorsal fin, but it's got a really defined edge. The spots on the caudal fin also look bay goby-ish. Lastly, if the pattern of spots looks like a snakehead prickleback, and it's not a snakehead prickleback, it's probably a bay goby.

So useful! Thanks for turning it into a pdf!

As a counterpoint, I did a dive at Alki Junkyard last night, and only saw 5 stars in the very early stages of the disease out of maybe 22-23 total. I've sent reports to the folks at the Vancouver Aquarium and UC Santa Cruz. It's interesting that two nearby sites can be very different in terms of how...

Roughback sculpin ate a crab.

One last post to back up the idea that this isn't necessarily unusual, Ling Cod sightings at Three Tree from 2005-2007 were on 29% of 100 surveys, evenly split between expert and novice. Three tree itself conforms to the same sort of curve that we see in the rest of the sound for this time period. I...

Cove 2: 2011-2013: 69.8% 2009-2011: 78.9% 2007-2009: 70.7% 2005-2007: 69.3% Mukilteo T-Dock 2011-2013: 44.4% 2009-2011: 73.9% 2007-2009: 61.9% 2005-2007: 0 (Only 6 surveys!) Alki Pipeline: 2011-2013: 52.9% (17 surveys) 2009-2011: 57.1% (14 surveys) 2007-2009: 71.4% (7 surveys) 2005-2007: 36.4% (11 s...

At Alki Junkyard, which isn't too dissimilar from Three Tree and Redondo: 2011-2013: 3% sightings 2009-2011: 31.3% sightings 2007-2009: 0 sightings 2005-2007: 0 sightings Of course, at Redondo, 2011-2013: 26.5% 2009-2011: 51% 2007-2009: 54.7% 2005-2007: 7.7% So, lots of variation in those sites too,...

Careful, keep asking questions like that and you might turn into a fish geek like the rest of us.

ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

I'm using Flickr, but direct linking isn't Flickr's strong suit. I'm a dev, so I don't mind using Chrome's inspector to find an img tag, but that's not really everyone's optimal workflow. OTOH, uploading and organizing photos is pretty simple, and I'm a fan of folksonomy, which Flickr does really we...

I wanna know more about this reef at 70 feet. Is it Saltwater state park sized? Alki fishing reef sized, or smaller than either of those?

Nice! Did you set the camera down on something to keep it that steady, or do you just have unnaturally steady hands?

When I first learned to snorkel, I had the same problem, with basically the same solution, I stuck my face in a sink full of water and forced myself to exhale through my nose. After awhile, I could do that with no problem, and when I had to do a 75 foot swim with no mask, it wasn't a big deal.

Horned shrimp! I love seeing those guys, and I have yet to get a good picture of one.

W00t!

I'd done the 500psi weight check plenty of times before switching to the BP/W, so I'm thinking that foam and padding in the previous BCD (a Zeagle) contributed to some of that.

A BP/W helped me lose weight! From my weight belt! I seriously dropped about 18 pounds of lead on a single tank setup, and not all of that was because of the plate. I even took the thing to Maui, and managed to stay under the 50 lb baggage limit.

You'll just feel way more comfortable in the water.

The fish is a leaf scorpionfish I think:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taenianotus_triacanthus

Cool!