The ongoing 'Dond Lumpie and Friends Show ...

[Lonestar]

Your pipefish looks a LOT better than mine! Couple more photos from the south side.

[Grateful Diver]

James, on the fisheye lens, try pulling your strobes way back behind the camera and pointing them slightly outward. I find it helps reduce backscatter a lot ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Dusty2]

Great detail on the snail fish, James. Probably the best pic I've seen of one!

Plus one on that.

[eliseaboo]

Great shots Ron! Let me know when you're ready to sell that camera

[gutholmj]

Great shots Ron! Let me know when you're ready to sell that camera

[LCF]

gutholmj, LOVE the wide angle lumpie shots! They put those cute little critters into much better context.

Showy and marbled snailfish . . . I've got to get down to Redondo soon!

[Grateful Diver]

Did two more dives at the 'Dond this morning ... a pre-dawn dive along the south beach shallows and a mid-morning dive from the south beach across to the bottle field and up at the aquarium.

Although we found several lumpies on the first dive, I didn't keep any of the pics because none of them turned out as OK as shots I already have. Second dive I got a few shots I liked ...

This little octo was all stretched out on a tire ... and he must've been tired because he didn't move for the entire time both myself and Kathryn were taking several pictures apiece ...



Got a couple shots of the little wolfie that I like ... nice "bouquet" shots with the tubeworms and all ...





Found another cockerell's dorid ...



... and then noticed there were two of 'em ...



... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Tom Nic]

Nice!

[WylerBear]

Bob, I'm going to Redondo on Tuesday and I'm wondering where this south beach shallows is exactly. Go in by the boat ramp and stay shallow? Go how far? Obviously, you are able to spend some time in the shallows, then go deeper and get to the aquarium all in one dive. But were you diving side mount? Could someone do it on a single 100 (assuming good air consumption)?

[Scubak]

Bob, I'm going to Redondo on Tuesday and I'm wondering where this south beach shallows is exactly. Go in by the boat ramp and stay shallow? Go how far? Obviously, you are able to spend some time in the shallows, then go deeper and get to the aquarium all in one dive. But were you diving side mount? Could someone do it on a single 100 (assuming good air consumption)?

I'm wondering as well, as in what is the dive plan for this dive?
Please advise as I have been wanting to explore the Southern area for sometime.
Kirsten

[Grateful Diver]

Actually, we did it in two dives.

Dive 1 - fin up and drop down at the beach just south of the boat ramp. Swim down to about 20 feet and head south. Yesterday the tide was pretty high, and at 20 feet we were just below the eel grass. Unlike the north beach, the shallows below the eel grass here contains a lot of kelp ... and an occasional boulder to provide structure and shelter for critters. It's not better than the north side ... just a llittle bit different. I'm finding more bay pipefish and snailfish on this side ... but fewer nudibranchs and gunnels. The lumpies are both on the kelp and in the eel grass beds. Typical dive profile is to head out in 15-20 fsw for 30-40 minutes, then come up to the eel grass at 10-5 on the way back in. If you have a larger cylinder or are good on air consumption, you also have the option to surface swim out to about even with the last white float and drop down there ... kicking down to the south bottle field at about 70+ fsw for a bit before heading upslope for a shallow finish to your dive.

Dive 2 - Start your dive just like I described in the last sentence above ... and when you're done exploring the south bottle field, kick across in front of the fishing pier ... at a minimum depth of about 80 fsw ... to the bottle field that we're all more familiar with. That should take about 7-10 minutes, depending on how fast you're swimming. Then come up the usual route and end the dive underneath the aquarium.

Those are the two dives we did yesterday. In our case, each dive was roughly 68 minutes.

I should point out that dive 2 is something you should only consider in the colder months ... when there's no fishing or boating activity going on ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[LCF]

I posted elsewhere, but it might be reasonable to be cautious on an ebb tide with a south wind. We got our butts handed to us by the Redondo River yesterday, and the tidal exchange wasn't even that big. (We could not make headway upslope and toward the entry stairs, and ended up having to surface and exit north of Salty's, where we had some shelter.)

[Grateful Diver]

Yikes! We had a small downcurrent toward the end of our dive ... which was just prior to yours ... but nothing you couldn't make headway against.

The Redondo River is most definitely to be respected. Problem is I've never really been able to pin down how to predict it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Lonestar]

2 dives last night. Fishermen galore on the pier and a trk/trl in the parking lot. No boat in sight so entered at the boat ramp. Dropped to the south bottle field and then worked our way slowly up slope while headed south. WAY south. There seemd to b e no end to the shells, even found a live clam! Ran across some clay pipes, a toilet, and an intertube. Ran into the usual bazillion tubesnouts, tons and tons of nudi's, a couple of pipefish and absolutely no lumpies. It's getting disheartening. Would have had a long surface swim back if we hadn't been so shallow. Boat came back about our half way point and was buzzing around a long long time. During our SI two "Christmas" boat passed from north to south fairly close in, hung out in the area we had just been diving for a while and then headed back north.

2nd dive we went in at the steps, saw the wolfie and headed up the shallow line to the VW and rockpile. Lots of octos of all sizes. Lot of them.

Oh yeah, it was 33 degress. Brrrr

[Mongo]

Nice pictures everyone. Thanks for posting them.

I learn so much looking at them. Example: I saw a snailfish and a pipefish today but had no clue what they were....

[gutholmj]

Thanks for keeping the thread going. It's been great to see all the additions.

Just watch out for this guy.

[Grateful Diver]

I hooked up with Penelope this morning for a really nice south to north tour. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, vis was somewhere between very good and awesome, and ... well ... what can you say about a dive where you see three juvenile wolfies, the fattest lumpsucker ever, cockerell's dorids, and all the usual suspects. It was fantastic.

The first two wolfies were burrowed into some debris on the south side of the boat ramp ... at about 70 feet. I spotted one, and while I was trying to take a picture, Penelope found a second one burrowed in on the other side. Neither was out sufficient to get a decent picture ... and these two were much smaller than our friendly wolfie down in front of the aquarium.

A couple minutes later I found what looked like a megaphone ... which had been turned into a motorhome ...



Just a few minutes after that, Penelope found Mr. Lumpie ... this fellow was easily the size of a golf ball ...



After that, we crossed in front of the fishing pier at a depth of about 85 feet, till we got to the bottle field, then came up to about 70 until we got to the ladder boat. Heading upslope, we went to check out the little lady in the pipe ... she was happy to see us ...

... oh boy ... divers!



... I think somebody's been feeding her ...



... what? no food ???



... I swear, she's sulking ...



Heading upslope to the sewer pipe, I checked out along the barnacles until I found cockerell's dorids ...



... I like this one ...



After that we made our way upslope. The shallower we got, the better the vis ... from a depth of about 35 feet I could look upslope and see the entire width of the pilings in front of the aquarium. Shafts of sunlight were sloping down thru the water, making it look almost tropical.

Overall, an awesome 71 minute dive ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Tom Nic]

Very nice Bob!

[cardiver]

Ditto!

[Jan K]

Very nice show of PNW critters. You got your camera and strobes wired now

[Lonestar]

We decided to do something different so we headed up to 3 Tree. Saw a GPO, wolfie, and a couple of spotted greenlings and not much else so we headed to Redondo.

[Grateful Diver]

Three more from last night's dive with diverc (Rich) ...







... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[gutholmj]

Three more from last night's dive with diverc (Rich) ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Nice job on that pipefish Bob. They're surprisingly difficult to get an attractive photo of, at least for me. Have there been other years where the cockerell's have been at Redondo? At least for the 2 years I've been diving in Puget Sound, I've never seen one at Redondo.

[Mongo]

Nice clean shots of the wolfie Bob. The colors are amazing.

I finally saw it with my own eyes today.

[Grateful Diver]

Three more from last night's dive with diverc (Rich) ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Nice job on that pipefish Bob. They're surprisingly difficult to get an attractive photo of, at least for me. Have there been other years where the cockerell's have been at Redondo? At least for the 2 years I've been diving in Puget Sound, I've never seen one at Redondo.

I'm only finding them in one place ... and about this time of year I tend to find them pretty consistently there. They're really tiny, and if you're not specifically searching for them, it's easy to look right at them and not notice that they're there ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)