Northwest Dive Club

Wow - that's an incredible range of shots from the wider angle stuff all the way down to what I am assuming is greater than 1:1 macro. Is that multiple dives/camera setups?

Thank you, I drag around two cameras

I guess technically I do too since I do stick a GoPro on top of my SLR, but I've never been super thrilled with the stills results from my GoPro.

Do you mind me asking what you lug around?

Holmes Harbor, November 3rd.
Male Whitespotted greenling guarding egg nest. Different females depositing eggs together, each batch of eggs sports a different color. How they manage that I am still trying to find out. The same is true with many other fish, with Buffalo sculpins especially.

ktuli wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:01 am I guess technically I do too since I do stick a GoPro on top of my SLR, but I've never been super thrilled with the stills results from my GoPro.

Do you mind me asking what you lug around?

Olympus TG-5 & TG-6

Wrapping up pics from the Holmes Harbor, November 3rd dive .

The Holmes Harbor pics look like they could have been taken at the Alki Junkpile this week. Have also spotted hooded nudis, horned nudis, shaggy mouse nudis, and whitespotted greenling eggs.

derekcs wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 4:01 pm The Holmes Harbor pics look like they could have been taken at the Alki Junkpile this week. Have also spotted hooded nudis, horned nudis, shaggy mouse nudis, and whitespotted greenling eggs.

The traffic to the site is easier, probably more parking. I never dived Alki, so it is just my guess

Lagoon Point, November 7th.
If you want colors on a rainy and windy day, you don't have to go far, just look under nearby floating dock. Tunicates, solitary, social and compound, are competing for food and space there and so provide the whole spectrum of color in just few feet of water. No deep dive involved

Few more from the underwater world below the Lagoon Point docks. Truly a muck dive...

Keystone Jetty, November 8th. Intrepid beachcomber, fellow Freelander Ric happened on the scene just as I was getting ready to go in. In spite of the recent rains, visibility was not bad, up to twenty feet, some haze from the very fine silt in the water column.

Keystone November 8th. Crab Edition. I added another crab sighting to my list, unfortunately I did not get a good picture of the Blackclaw crab ... Thanks Greg Jensen for the help with ID.

Well, after two days without electric power, I return to the world of internet & FB.
It might take a while till I get back in water, meanwhile, catching up on the last dive on November 12th at Driftwood Park. I avoided diving there the whole salmon season since fishermen line the shores and along with casting for salmon, cast an evil eye at the divers entering "their" territory. This time I found numerous PVS pipe sections, part of Octopus Research as they were marked. I did not mess with them, so I don't know if there were any octopuses inside, I am sure at least one of them was illegally occupied by juvenile Wolf-eel. I did come across one small GPO homeless, wandering out in the open.

Hi Jan,
Was there any indication as to who was doing the octopus research?
Curiously yours,
Alex

Tidepool Geek wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 7:54 am Hi Jan,
Was there any indication as to who was doing the octopus research?
Curiously yours,
Alex

Yes, there is a name & phone number written on the tubes, Walla Walla University,
Kirt Onthank.

The Driftwood Park, November 12th Octopus encounter.
The Giant Pacific Octopus not that giant yet. Small, but already skilled in the game of camouflage.

Some of the Driftwood Park trash becomes home to marine life. Not sure if the octopus inside the glass home used it to lay eggs, but it sure looks like it. Crabs probably use it for cover. In the past I used to find juvenile Wolf-eels inside the toilet, but this time they probably saw my past posting of them and decided it was bad for their image and hid from me and my camera.

Juvenile Wolf-eel, this one roaming around the Driftwood Park. November 12th dive.

Keystone Jetty, November 19th. Some blue skies, finally.
Fun with the tangled mess of Bull kelp.

Keystone November 19th . The return of Wrinkled dogwinkle snails for their annual sex party.
Their congregation on some of the jetty rocks continues...

Driftwood Park, November 20th.
Rather dismal visibility. As for the Octopus Research project,
I found two juvenile Wolf-eels in the provided octopus housing, but no octopus.

Keystone Jetty, November 21st. Calm weather and great tides/currents brought many to Whidbey Island to see what the jetty has to offer. In spite of rather silty waters an thus not so great visibility, judging by the smiles of all I saw, it was not a wasted trip. Here are few I met underwater, as I was returning from my dive, passing others heading in...

Keystone Jetty, November 21st. The recent wind/rain storm brought in uprooted Bull kelp which was sparse this year here at Keystone. I even found in the tangled mess kelp not found in Whidbey waters, Small Giant Kelp, usually found west from us in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Northern kelp crabs and Green sea urchins graze on the dying algae.

November Jetty - slugs and snails

Keystone Jetty November critters continued.
These don't move much