Dive Report: Newport Fingers

[LittleGoat]

Last Saturday was a on and off rainy day in Newport. It was the first time that I have dove the fingers but it was a great experience. There were two other groups diving but it wasn't crowded. I was quite pleased with the viz (approx 6 feet) given that it was raining the day before. Being an Oregon diver, anything above 3' is good to me! The water was a balmy 48 degrees at 34' (the fingers aren't deep) which meant that we got cold long before we ran out of air. One of us found an unknown nudibranch that was about 3/8's inch long free swimming. It was very pretty. Saw a ton of sea stars, a dozen or so of kelp greenlings (male and female, between 6-8" long), 2 black rock bass (roughly 6' a piece), 3 striped surf perch (4 incher and the other two were 6), and one ling cod (I estimate to be around 15-18"). All in all a fantastic day. As soon as we got out of the water we were asking when can we do this next. Unfortunately we only had enough time for one dive since we have non-diving family members that wanted to spend time with us in Newport (I'm working on fixing that problem).

[oregondiver]

Thanks for the write up!
Me 'n Funkydiver might join you sometime!

[Gooch]

Nice report! I like the fish counts. We dove it last year and I really liked it. My wife saw a rock greenling there...I have yet to see one. I need to connect with the oregon divers more and hit some spots down there.

[spatman]

thanks for the write up! are you a REEF member? i know Janna would love to have a lot more oregon fish and invertebrate surveys submitted...

[Beefcake]

Nice! I thought about going there last Saturday, but we tried the Lumber Dock at Garibaldi instead. It sounds like we made the wrong decision (we hit the middle of the incoming tide and only had about 1-1.5' of vis on the bottom; we surfaced twice because we got separated, and once because I got disoriented by an eddy in the current and didn't trust my compass; we finally called the dive after about 19 minutes). I thought the ocean swell prediction looked too bad to try the fingers, but now I wish we had driven down there.

[LittleGoat]

[quote="spatman"] are you a REEF member? i/quote]

I am not a REEF member but I am interested in becoming one. I have been reading up on identification but I know that a formal class would do me good.

[spatman]

I am not a REEF member but I am interested in becoming one. I have been reading up on identification but I know that a formal class would do me good.

check in with janna (nwscubamom). she can let you know when and where the next available REEF classes are, and they are often free.

[nice-diver]

wow, six foot black rocks

[quote="LittleGoat"] 2 black rock bass (roughly 6' a piece), quote]

I love newport
what did the nudi look like, I have photoed 7 different ones there

[LittleGoat]

what did the nudi look like, I have photoed 7 different ones there

If I had to stab a guess, I would go with a Opalescent Nudibranch. It was white, had the tendrils off from the back (I didn't count the rows of them) with orange tips to the tendrils. Quite beautiful.

And no, that was a typo. They were 6 inches, not feet... but maybe that was some narcosis. Who knows :biggrin: