Northwest Dive Club

While the stormy weather rages over our area, here are some more tranquil scenes from the recent dives at Skyline.
Slugs, jellyfish, starfish and seaweed parade ...

Hi Jan,

Terrific photos as always: Thanks & keep up the good work!

I don't know why but, no matter how many times I see it happening, I'm always surprised at how many things eat jellyfish.

Rockweed trivia: I've been told that the slimy stuff found in the rockweed's floats is essentially the same as aloe vera.

On the Olympic Peninsula it seems that Six-Rays were somewhat less affected by SSWD than most of the larger species; I can't back this up with hard data but my sense is of a 50% mortality as opposed to 80%. As an aside, after a few years of being SSWD free, we've lost 3 or 4 stars over the last few months at the Feiro Center.

Fannishly yours,
Alex

Tidepool Geek wrote: On the Olympic Peninsula it seems that Six-Rays were somewhat less affected by SSWD than most of the larger species; I can't back this up with hard data but my sense is of a 50% mortality as opposed to 80%. As an aside, after a few years of being SSWD free, we've lost 3 or 4 stars over the last few months at the Feiro Center. Alex

The Six-Rays fared very well during the big die-off, overall, they are doing still well at Skyline.
However, I dived Langley yesterday and the Mottled and Ochre stars are starting to waste into piles of white globs again in large numbers :(

After re-posting memory page from three years ago, I revisited the pile of rock where I took the pictures of crowd of Saddleback gunnels.
To my delight, I found them there again. One of them obviously remembers me and it came out to say hi.

I cannot verify personally how long the crabs can survive inside the trap, but it always hurts to see them struggling inside the wire prison and the pickup line, which is supposed to lead up to the surface laying on the bottom, victim of poorly chosen location. The mooring cables which crisscross the waters below the floating docks are playing havoc with the trap pickup lines tied to the railing above and so many traps are abandoned as they are impossible to raise. :(

I am always little worried when I see changes in the underwater. This time clumps of filamentous alga resembling tumbleweed of the desert are starting to showing up on the tire reef and on the surrounding seafloor. Same seaweed appeared last year on pilings under the Coupeville wharf. It now covers the underside of the Langley floating dock completely. Something tells me this is not good ...

Puget Sound King Crab. Smallest I have ever seen.

WOW Super Cute!!!!!!!!!! I'd love to see one that small. Great work as always Jan!!!!

The reduced last pair of legs in a king crab is a holdover from their hermit crab ancestry, and they are specialized for cleaning the gills and (in the case of the males) for transferring sperm to females when mating. It is likely that females use them to help keep their eggs clean.

Very very cool!

Thanks Greg for explaining what the Oregon Aquarium site describing Puget Sound King Crab didn't know.

Latest sea star surveys around Whidbey Island did not bring any joy, it seems the wasting disease is gathering strength in spite of cooling weather. The Mottled stars are at this moment the ones mostly affected, right now at Langley and Coupeville. At Keystone one of the four adult Sunflower stars is now gone. I found gathering of young Sunflower stars in Langley harbor, but who knows how long they will survive ... :(

After the rather depressing post on wasting sea stars, here are few "portraits" of juvenile Wolf eels from Wednesday dive at Skyline to cheer you up. It was a breezy and rainy day, but as always, the colors beneath the waves do not disappoint. And if you see a sparkle in the eyes of your buddy, it might be Tapetum lucidum ...

Wolf eels do have bones- as do the true eels

Thanks Greg.
I learned some time ago, that lot of information about marine life on internet is not either updated, or wrong. (surprise). Even from reputable sources. So I appreciate when experts chime in and set the record straight. Hopefully, we can then all learn.

Deception Pass. Friday 27th. In spite of some interesting currents which refused to follow the prediction tables, the marine life there moves on. Scalyhead sculpin hides in Funnel sponge and male Kelp greenlings are guarding egg clusters.

Saturday 28, Fourteen divers descended to Little North Beach to dive the Deception Pass before the access gate closes for the season on November 1st ... OK friends, see you around, maybe at Keystone ?

Thank my friend for a Great Day of diving !! And getting to share the Day Together doing what we love

When the currents run through the Deception Pass, it is difficult at times to "Stop and Smell the Roses"...
But clinging to our cameras, we keep on trying.

Happy SlugO'ween ...

At all the other sites around Whidbey Island, the Shaggy Mouse nudibranchs are sporting rather drab colors. Not so in the waters of Deception Pass. Many slugs take on color of the food they eat. The pink/red color is common in the Pass, so slugs and some fish wear it even if it takes diver's light to show it off...

There were always few sickly, dying Finger sponges at Deception Pass, but during my last three dives there at the end of October, I found so many that it got my attention. In all the years I dived Deception Pass, I have never seen this many sick sponge clusters. Since I don't find Orange Finger sponges anywhere else around Whidbey Island, I don't know how common the problem really is. Hopefully, it is only temporary, local outbreak. :(

Peculiar behavior of Scalyhead sculpins. I came across two adult males in what looked like a fight. But only one was the aggressive one, the other one was passive, letting the "bully" grab him by its side. But there was no injury, the victim did not swim away when released, and stayed in the same position when the aggressor repeated the "attack". It all happened in the open, no obvious nesting site, such as empty barnacle shell, or female. The whole scene reminded me of encounter back in 2004, when I saw adult Scalyhead carry a juvenile in similar fashion. I have no idea if it tried to eat it or just playing with it as the sometimes do with hermit crabs ...

Keystone Pilings. I still enjoy the shallow dive among the pillars of the old wharf.
On this mostly cloudy day, I missed the sun rays coming down through the cathedral "windows", but clouds of perch made up for it...

Short Plumose anemones, sporting different colors, in the same location - Deception Pass. It is hard to believe, but they are all the same species.

Autumn is here, I find Fall colored leaves even on the seafloor now.
And the old Bull kelp is getting tangled by the storms,
yes, the winter is coming ...