Wacky nudifest at Edmonds
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 8:45 am
Betty Bastai and I had been trying to put together a day to dive for . . . well, months, actually. We finally came up with a day that worked for both of us, and nobody had any gear issues or health issues or any of the other things that have kept us from actually diving together. And it was a GORGEOUS day at the Edmonds Underwater Park, clear and sunny and ridiculously cold. The latter even meant parking spaces at 10 am, which was nice. (The thermometer in my car said it was 26 degrees when I pulled in. Even sunshine isn't enough to pull sane Seattlites out of their houses at that temperature.)
I was sort of hoping that viz would be good, since we haven't had any recent rain OR wind, and I wasn't disappointed. We had at least 20 to 30 feet of mint-green water to look for critters in, and oh, my, the critters! It was a veritable festival of nudibranchs. Although we saw nothing particularly rare (although Betty is sure she saw a Nanaimo dorid in a pipe, which I've never seen at Edmonds) we found ALL of the common species. Those big pipes that Bruce and friends installed several years ago at the beginning of Jetty Way have become covered in sponges and hydroids, and are clearly great grazing ground for a variety of slugs, and of course, the silty bottom is home to alabaster nudis and Tritonias. Betty and I were in seventh heaven, snapping photos like paparazzi.
The truly peculiar thing about this trip to Edmonds is that, in an aggregate of 2 1/4 hours in the water, we saw not ONE cabezon. We did, however, encounter several ling cod guarding eggs. One, in particular, was the most aggressive ling I've ever met. He had a HUGE collection of eggs, and his "territory" was at least 50 feet in diameter. He made me nervous, swimming right up my stomach while I was trying to take a picture of a clown nudi on the pipe, and when I turned around, Betty was writhing like a swimming anemone, trying to bat him away from her. He was about 3 feet long, so a fairly impressive, toothy and thorough aggravated animal!
There was so much to see and take pictures of that we did 66 minutes in the water, and only got to the end of the last pipe segment!
I'm discussing speciation on that one
Aeolida papillosa
Betty
The second dive, we decided to get in on the other side of the jetty and hit one of the other lines. I'm here to tell you that, if you do that, do the surface swim all the way out to the buoys, or maybe even a bit further. We finally picked up one of the east-west lines, but there was NO structure on it. Nonetheless, we followed the principle of my dear friend Ben, and looked at what WAS there . . . which was a whole bunch of alabaster nudis, tritonias, a pile of vertebrae from maybe a big ling cod, and at the end, two hermit crabs I had never seen before.
My first thought was, "That's a tarantula!"
Despite our intention to keep the second dive short, we ended up doing another full hour in the 45 degree water. We were both VERY ready for a stop at the Starbucks at the top of the hill!
I don't dive Edmonds very often, and when I do, I often think I ought to go there more frequently. When the visibility is good, there is an awful lot to see there.
I was sort of hoping that viz would be good, since we haven't had any recent rain OR wind, and I wasn't disappointed. We had at least 20 to 30 feet of mint-green water to look for critters in, and oh, my, the critters! It was a veritable festival of nudibranchs. Although we saw nothing particularly rare (although Betty is sure she saw a Nanaimo dorid in a pipe, which I've never seen at Edmonds) we found ALL of the common species. Those big pipes that Bruce and friends installed several years ago at the beginning of Jetty Way have become covered in sponges and hydroids, and are clearly great grazing ground for a variety of slugs, and of course, the silty bottom is home to alabaster nudis and Tritonias. Betty and I were in seventh heaven, snapping photos like paparazzi.
The truly peculiar thing about this trip to Edmonds is that, in an aggregate of 2 1/4 hours in the water, we saw not ONE cabezon. We did, however, encounter several ling cod guarding eggs. One, in particular, was the most aggressive ling I've ever met. He had a HUGE collection of eggs, and his "territory" was at least 50 feet in diameter. He made me nervous, swimming right up my stomach while I was trying to take a picture of a clown nudi on the pipe, and when I turned around, Betty was writhing like a swimming anemone, trying to bat him away from her. He was about 3 feet long, so a fairly impressive, toothy and thorough aggravated animal!
There was so much to see and take pictures of that we did 66 minutes in the water, and only got to the end of the last pipe segment!
I'm discussing speciation on that one
Aeolida papillosa
Betty
The second dive, we decided to get in on the other side of the jetty and hit one of the other lines. I'm here to tell you that, if you do that, do the surface swim all the way out to the buoys, or maybe even a bit further. We finally picked up one of the east-west lines, but there was NO structure on it. Nonetheless, we followed the principle of my dear friend Ben, and looked at what WAS there . . . which was a whole bunch of alabaster nudis, tritonias, a pile of vertebrae from maybe a big ling cod, and at the end, two hermit crabs I had never seen before.
My first thought was, "That's a tarantula!"
Despite our intention to keep the second dive short, we ended up doing another full hour in the 45 degree water. We were both VERY ready for a stop at the Starbucks at the top of the hill!
I don't dive Edmonds very often, and when I do, I often think I ought to go there more frequently. When the visibility is good, there is an awful lot to see there.