Whidbey Island Critters

[Jan K]

Enough of snow shoveling and longing for the warm, tropical waters. Time to return to the cold water reality of Whidbey Island diving. Valentine's Day good as any to dust off the drysuit, recharge the camera and strobe batteries and slosh through wet snow into the waters of Langley Harbor...

[Jan K]

Welcome back, Curt. Nothing lame about what you saw in your travels. The real thing pixels can not replace .

Fiji fish, corals, sponge and feather star parade continues ...

[oldsalt]

My access to internet has been limited while I was in the Galapagos. I just saw your trip photos. My goodness. My Fiji photos are so lame in comparison. Thank you,
Curt

[Jan K]

Thank you Sharkb8, I am glad you enjoy the pics. And no, the Great White Wall was not visited this time. Maybe next trip ?

From the cold island back to the tropics. More pics from dive #6 in the underwater Disneyland...

[Sharkb8]

Your Fiji content is absolutely incredible. Hopefully you got to dive the Great White Wall!!!

[Jan K]

Rain and snow = Slushy Mess...
Time for another Fiji memory dive. Number 6 - Disneyland.

[Jan K]

Interrupting the white world of snow surrounding us with some color of Fijian corals

[Jan K]

Whidbey Island winter snow, Round 2. With the world around me turning white, I dig for some color into the Fiji files from dive # 5. Swim through Heaven. My new friend Mike, whom I met there and who spends winters in Fiji, probably wonders why I returned the US so soon. I am wondering myself ...

[Jan K]

Whidbey Island. 21 degrees F outside my window while I process more of the photos I took underwater, which was 82 F.
Our fourth dive site called "Always Cool".
Flat worms pretend to be nudibranchs and more coral and colorful scenery for your (and mine) enjoyment...

[Tangfish]

Gorgeous colors and as always, such wonderful illustrations!

[Jan K]

While many of my fellow Washingtonians will now post pictures of this morning snow, I will throw in some more tropical colors from our dives in Fijian waters ... Amazing Maze is the name of section of Sailrock Reef, large area off the northeast end of island of Viti Levu, location of our third dive.

[Jan K]

Thank you Tom, travel is what nurtures my soul ...

Fiji Dive 2 - After one hour long surface interval, we move to another location - Bula Maker.
Less current and better visibility. I could linger on just one of the coral heads the entire hour allocated for the dive and find enough to keep me mesmerized...

[Tom Nic]

So beautiful.... Makes my travel trigger finger itch!

Thanks for sharing this and so many other journeys with us Jan! Blessings on you and your daughter!

[Jan K]

First dive in truly tropical waters in 17 years. The Cabo Pulmo two years ago was not a truly tropics, since the coral was very scarce and a wetsuit was part of the diving attire. Fiji on the other hand, was a riot of colors served in 82 degree water.
Dream Maker reef was our introduction to the Bligh Water currents and because of the rainy season, I guess, not so stellar visibility which ranged from only 30 feet in the upper first thirty or so feet and varied from then up to 50 in places. But the variety and number of coral, soft and hard, was a feast for the eyes. Identification of many of the inverts and marine life is difficult for my lack of knowledge of the local fauna and flora, I will try my best. I hope you enjoy the sights as much as I did. Let the show begin. Dive one: The Dream Maker.

[Jan K]

Taking short break from Whidbey Island Critters
Once a year, Maya and I try to trade the cold waters of Pacific Northwest for waters warm and clear. Since her vacation time was limited, we choose Fiji. Our winter is their summer and although the forecast was showing rain and thunder for every day of our planned stay, we traveled there anyway. Flight from Seattle to Los Angeles on the night of the moon eclipse, then boarded Fiji Airways for a long 10 hour flight to Nadi on the island of Viti Levu. Somewhere during the night we lost Monday and landed in Fiji Tuesday morning. Van ride along the northern coast to Wananavu Resort. Our worries about weather were unfounded, the few rain showers passed quickly in the afternoon and mostly sunny weather prevailed during our entire stay. The diving begun the next morning ...

[Vjw]

I love the pink proliferating anemone on the yellow and orange background! Such beautiful colors!! Thank you so much for sharing all your pictures and experiences.

[Jan K]

Few more from the January Deception Pass dive ...

[Jan K]

The currents were not the friendliest, visibility only about 12 silty feet, but Deception Pass is always a treat. Frost on the ground and only visitors on the beach were two seagulls looking for a handout. No wasting observed in any of the sea stars, so another survey with welcome results.

[Jan K]

Langley Harbor survey. Only one wasted sea star, which is a good news.
What I found interesting was the large gathering on Noble dorids.

[Jan K]

The season of Lingcod guarding egg masses is upon us.
Be prepared for encounters with some bad tempered individuals

[Jan K]

I don't know the history, I think the parking area is fine, but the tailings from dredging were just deposited there and as I recall not much of compacting went into the effort. I am not engineer, but remember Pete shoveling access path on the new deposited rim, it was very loose, so I am not surprised that every really high tide took some of the material back to sea. Visibility since that dredging never returned to the good old days before dredging. Even Lingcod were covered with silt.

[Sharkb8]

Is the parking area at Keystone man made? As we all know, mother nature usually doesn't take much pity on things that aren't supposed to be there! As long as the water keeps following the erosion back towards the road and they relocate the bathroom, I'm ok with it! More of the jetty underwater would be an ok tradeoff for less parking.

[oldsalt]

A common cycle for beaches consists of erosion of during winter storms followed by deposition from river sediments during spring runoffs. Whidbey Island suffers from having no rivers to recharge the sediment, so you have only half of the cycle. Some of your beaches are sustained from erosion of adjacent bluffs.
-Curt

[Jan K]

Keystone Jetty mix. Some above and some under. If the beach erosion continues, we will be soon parking on the highway :(
Although the scene above looks bleak, there is still color to be found underwater.

[Jan K]

Keystone is hosting gathering of Wrinkled dogwinkle snails as it does every winter. This year it seems that there are attending the reproductive convention in larger numbers than year ago.
Is this happening in such numbers elsewhere in Puget Sound also ?