Had a great dive with ORDiver and No excuses, this morning. During the Surface swim out, we saw three Sea Otters hunting or snacking under the Aquarium / Dive Pier. They were dipping just below the surface and coming back up while chewing on something. As we aproached the end of the Pier they left and then just befor we dropped, two of them came back. I was hoping we would be able to drop and see them below the surface, but the vis right there was less than desirable and I did not see them as we dropped. ORDiver had a small issue with clearing his ears, so he went back up and came down slowly, and all was good. There was the usual big school of Tubesnouts and I think that may have been what the Sea Otters were snacking on.
(I wish I had Jan K's ability to draw a cartoon of it.) We went down to the Carousel boat and backup to some of the other attractions at "The Dond". Saw a big Ling Cod, a small GPO and a "BIG" GPO. ORDiver saw a Sailfin Sculpin and we saw a Buffalo Sculpin on the big pipe that refused to move, even when I lifted his upper lip with my fingertip and wiggled his nose. We also saw a big Sun Star cruising to go somewhere. And then there was a very large, Lewis Moon Snail. heading somewhere. As we were coming back to shore, I found a small clam shell, that had a fish inside it and I still need to I.D. it. It might have been a small Snail Fish, but I'm not sure.
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He was sitting inside the shell like a Snail Fish would, but when I brought him to the surface to have the guys help to identify it just wanted to go back in the water so I let the little guy go. It looked like it had a regular mouth and a sort of flat suction cup formation just aft of his mouth on the bottom. Any ideas? Vis was a good 20' or 30' down below 60 fsw, but was not too good when we went above 50 fsw, A very cloudy 15' or less. At least thats how I saw it.
I wonder how Greatfuldivers dive is, later in the afternoon as far as vis goes. Thanks to Dave and Stan, for a great dive!
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And it was nice to meet you guys and also good to meet Marie (?)sp too.
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Keith.