Cove 2 report

[YellowEye]

Cameron and I went for a scooter dive last night at cove 2... in hopes of finding a sixgill... We spent 57 minutes between the depths of 90 to 105 feet, zooming way down south of cove2. No luck on the sixgill sighting. But we did see a couple wrecks we haven't seen before (one huge, pretty much unrecognizable one, another smaller newer one). Also saw a seal, tons of prawns, tons of small ratfish with shiny eyes, a skate, octo, and warbonnet.

On the way up we saw a hooded nudibranch. I was imagining Cameron was calling the dive a malabe dive (inside joke for a skunked dive) due to no 6 gill. But on the deco looking at the pilings, we took a look under the honeybear, to find a beautiful large octo perched under the opening in full view. It wasn't budging! I had brought my cheap camera in hopes of having photo evidence of the six gill so i got some vid and pics... Lucky because I rarely carry a camera.

After viewing it for a few minutes, we realized there was ANOTHER large octo far in the honeybear, the usual spot they hang out... looks like we were witnessing a courting act, or at least an octo patiently waiting to get lucky! (no tentacle jabs ...) We may be seeing eggs under the honeybear soon folks!

Will upload videos later to share

[Sounder]

Last Tuesday those same two large octos were hanging out together too... love is definitely in the air. I agree that we should expect eggs sometime very soon.

[camerone]

But we did see a couple wrecks we haven't seen before (one huge, pretty much unrecognizable one, another smaller newer one)

Yeah, I've never seen those boats before. One's a little open aluminum thing that's been stripped pretty good - obviously scuttled since there's no motor or anything left inside of it, and the registration is still mostly readable on the side... Somewhere cove-1-sh @ 95'. The other thing, I have no idea what it is/was. It looks like the front section from a boat, perhaps, but I haven't a clue, and it's been down there a while. Same depth, and not far away.

The octos were pretty cool. The one in the photos was just sitting out in the open and didn't really seem to care that we were haning around. My guess is that there were other things on its mind We ended up with a run time at 100 minutes, as we hung out with the octos for quite a while...

Viz kind of sucked. I'm amazed the pix came out with the backscatter. Eric ended up running the scooters on "1" on the ride out, and it was definitely some eerie blind flying across the plains in some places.

-C

[YellowEye]

Videos: http://www.motionbox.com/videos/a791d1be1512ec2e

[gcbryan]

But we did see a couple wrecks we haven't seen before (one huge, pretty much unrecognizable one, another smaller newer one)

Yeah, I've never seen those boats before. One's a little open aluminum thing that's been stripped pretty good - obviously scuttled since there's no motor or anything left inside of it, and the registration is still mostly readable on the side... Somewhere cove-1-sh @ 95'. The other thing, I have no idea what it is/was. It looks like the front section from a boat, perhaps, but I haven't a clue, and it's been down there a while. Same depth, and not far away.
...
-C

Where was the second "thing" in relation to the "Monolith" or perhaps it was the monolith?

I'm glad to know that not having a scooter isn't the reason I haven't seen a Sixgill this year!

[BillZ]

Cool Pic's Eric!
We were at Cove 2 Saturday morning and the male octo was completely out from under the boat. It was the first time I've seen a GPO out in the open and it sort of freaked me out a bit.

[camerone]

Where was the second "thing" in relation to the "Monolith" or perhaps it was the monolith?

I'm glad to know that not having a scooter isn't the reason I haven't seen a Sixgill this year!

'Could've been it, but I don't remember there being "features" on the south side of the structure...but it has been years since I've been down in that part of Cove 1, so things are foggy. Had a couple of protrusions on the top that look like one of those spinny roof-vents or something. Viz was bad, and I confess that when I came upon it, I started humming the opening bars to "Also sprach Zarathustra". The rebreather has enough blinkenlights to resemble a space pod, anyway

I have to be honest that I've not been feeling my 100% self lately and I was pretty narc'd out of my skull for the entire dive until coming up to do my deco. I've been using tanks that I normally bank 21/35 in to top the rebreather off for other purposes, so the main dil was air on the dive. I'm sure that plays into my fuzzy recollection.

[YellowEye]

Isn't the monolith concrete? This was wood. Big lopsided shape at least 6-7 feet tall. Seal came by and silted the place out before I could video it or get a good look.

Good to hear other people are seeing the octo!

[gcbryan]

Isn't the monolith concrete? This was wood. Big lopsided shape at least 6-7 feet tall. Seal came by and silted the place out before I could video it or get a good look.

Good to hear other people are seeing the octo!

It's metal. I think it's part of a ships boiler or something like that.

[camerone]

It's metal. I think it's part of a ships boiler or something like that.

That'd make sense. Been down there so long it's hard to tell.