Day Island Wall 4/8

Tell us your tale of coming nose-to-nose with a 6 gill [--this big--], or about your vacation to turquoise warm waters. Share your adventures here!
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mpenders
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Day Island Wall 4/8

Post by mpenders »

Met up with BillZ this morning, and dove the south wall at Day Island.

Plan was to ride the flooding current south, and time it just right so that it when it slacked ant turned it would push us right back to the exit. We walked into the water within a minute or two of our planned splash time of 11:15, remedied Bill's dryglove that was trying to his drysuit into a wetsuit, finned up, and surface swam west out towards the wall. Uh-oh, surface current was already pushing us north...

Well, luck tends to favor the bold - so we continued on, hoping current on the bottom wasn't as strong. We dropped in at 11:25am in about 35fsw and found current there too, still pushing north - not ripping, but it was there. Viz was 15-20', and my computer claims the water was 46 degrees. We pushed on, heading west towards the wall.

We hit the wall at 50fsw, dropped over the edge...and the current was just barely present, still pushing north. Almost perfect, nothing that we couldn't easily fin against. We headed south, along the deeper portion of the wall, spent a lot of time at 75-85fsw. Not a lot of life was found on the deep portion of the wall, with the exception of the Red Irish Lords and Buffalo Sculpin that are always abundant at DIW. However, the structure of the wall is very impressive, with so many ledges and cut-outs that you're always on alert, expecting to find a huge GPO,Wolf Eel, or other exciting critter at any moment.

We turned about 35 min into the dive, ascended towards the top of the wall and rode the current back. More life is found at the top of the wall, and we ended up finding a couple of GPO's, 3 Wolf Eels, numerous nudibranchs and other critters. We crested the wall and slowly headed east towards home. Total dive time: 78 minutes.

Here's a few pics I managed:
Red Irish Lord
Red Irish Lord
Painted Anemone
Painted Anemone
Clown Nudibranch
Clown Nudibranch
Giant Barnacle
Giant Barnacle
Heart Cockle
Heart Cockle
Wolf Eel
Wolf Eel
GPO
GPO
Skeleton Shrimp
Skeleton Shrimp
Right after we crested the wall to head home, I came across a Gumboot Chiton that I think was in the process of spawning:
Gumboot Chiton spawning
Gumboot Chiton spawning
Gumboot Chiton spawning
Gumboot Chiton spawning
Gumboot Chiton spawning
Gumboot Chiton spawning
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BillZ
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Re: Day Island Wall 4/8

Post by BillZ »

Great shot of the spawning Chiton Mike! - I was wondering how the pictures would turn out.

Great diving with you - let's get together and do it again soon.
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Diver_C
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Re: Day Island Wall 4/8

Post by Diver_C »

Thank you for the dive report! DIW is my fave dive, and wolfs are my fave marine creature! :supz: :supz: :supz: It's been way too long since I dove DIW. :crybaby:
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Scubie Doo
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Re: Day Island Wall 4/8

Post by Scubie Doo »

Bravo! Very nice Penders.
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Gdog
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Re: Day Island Wall 4/8

Post by Gdog »

Very cool. Thanks for the post and sharing the pics! Very nicely done.
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mpenders
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Re: Day Island Wall 4/8

Post by mpenders »

BillZ wrote:
Great diving with you - let's get together and do it again soon.
Right back at ya Bill! I agree - soon!

Thanks all for the kind words. Day Island is one of my favorites, and I enjoy being able to share it with everyone.
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LCF
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Re: Day Island Wall 4/8

Post by LCF »

Very cool capture on the Chiton -- not only a great photograph, but good eyes to have realized what you were seeing!
"Sometimes, when your world is going sideways, the second best thing to everything working out right, is knowing you are loved..." ljjames
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