The last several years we have been doing very little diving due to work/travel, and general other things that seem to occupy our time. Guess you just go in and out of things that are a priority.
Since our son was born, he has been immersed in the things that my wife and I love. He has been on the ocean on our boat since 6 months old and traveled to Cozumel with us at 1. Like a lot of little ones, he has his ABC's around the walls on his room, but his ABC's are all pictures I took while diving, starting with Anenome and ending with Zebra Goby. Alas, up to this point we had never taken him to Hood Canal and let him watch us get in the water and disappear below the surface.
My wife, father in law, nor myself had dove in a couple of year so we decided Sund Rock in Hood Canal would be a great place for easy entry, familiar surrounding, an overall easy place to work out any kinks, and a good place for our son (Wolf) to see us off. It turned out to be a great decision as the water was great, and the vis more than decent.
Here's my wife and I with our son just before the first dive...
So, the one thing I haven't been without since the late 90's on a dive is a camera of some sort. Since I haven't dove in a couple years, and since my last dive I upgraded to a Nikon D7000, I am without a good housing or good camera. I still do have my first digital camera for diving, and old Oly 5050Z with a little YS-25 strobe. By todays standard it is slow, low MP, not a bright flash, and has terrible shutter lag. Oh well, better than nothing. In addition, I decided that I might as well mount my GoPro to the strobe and see how it worked diving, though sans video lights. Really more of a test to see if it was worth a darn.
So.... don't be too critical since it was my first dive in a couple years, and my first with a GoPro, but here's the first try at video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jMpr5Ov7Pk
Visibility was pretty darn good. I would say a good 25-30 most areas, with as much as 50 in some spots. The pics I took are nothing to write home about, but it's always nice to show my son and friends what you see on a dive. To that end, here are some of the highlights from the 3 dives....
It's always nice to find a Grunt, especially on your first dive in 2 years!
As always, there were plenty of lings sitting pretty guarding nests...
There were plenty of Wolfies around. I found around 6 males, 1 female, and 2 pair on dives. (my son loves the fact that they share the same name)
And of course there were plenty of octos.... Which leads to another story...
This particular octo was as feisty as I have seen. On my late afternoon dive on Saturday I encountered her out and about. I managed to snap a few pics and without much hesitation this octo glommed onto me. Took me a few minutes to get her extricated. Off on her merry way she went, no harm no foul. I had stuck my hand fairly close, so I was prepared for a grab, but the nature of it did surprise me. It was dark already, and with no video lights it was pointless to try and take video.
The following morning at the end of my dive as I was cruising the shallows I found the same octo out again. Cool! Good light for video, and I already happened to be shooting when I ran across it. I got up and was checking it out for a little bit when at 1:20 it started moving towards be. I back finned a little bit, but I got a real surprise when at 1:24 on the video it shot at me. I instinctively stuck out my hand and batted it back. I've encountered a lot of octos in my 20+ years of diving, but this was the very first that has ever came at me aggressively. I'm certainly not one to try and antagonize critters, and I didn't think I was with this guy, but apparently I did. I feel a little bad about pushing her away, but I'm sure I would do the same thing again with the surprise speed she moved at me. Frankly, I got surprised and just reacted. I'm sure someone will say I did something wrong, but it wasn't my intent.
See what you think. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o03LPSEmHnY
All in all, a great weekend for getting back to diving.
Lastly.... a family self portrait of my wife and I at 60 feet ....
