I hooked up with Uncle Pug, his son-in-law Shane, Lynne, Lauryn, Kirk, Doug (Sounder), and Nils today for a pair of dives from Shane's boat, the Straight Arrow ...
It was a beautiful New Year's Eve to get out and enjoy some sun ...
First dive was China Wall ... views above and below were quite nice ...
Found a few little things ...
Then we motored up to Boeing Creek ...
Found my first ... and last ... cockerell's dorid of 2010 ...
Turnabout is fair play ... when predator becomes prey ...
Found a nice sea pen at the end of the dive ...
After dive 2 we broke out some champagne as we headed back to the dock ... and toasted the successful completion of a great day and a good year ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Threats and ultimatums are never the best answer. Public humiliation via Photoshop is always better - airsix
That was one of the best days of diving I had in 2010... conditions were absolutely perfect. It was rather cold (ok, really cold) but being calm, sunny, and surrounded by some of my favorite people was more than enough to keep me warm. The 400g and boat-coat helped too.
I think Laurynn got some incredible footage... hopefully we'll get a peak at it sometime next year.
GUE Seattle - The official GUE Affiliate in the Northwest!
A morning that began with looking at the thermometer in my car showing 19 degrees . . . and realizing that, because I had agreed to bring Kirk's tanks, I didn't even have the option of bagging it and going back to what was a very warm and appealing bed.
I loaded my gear on the boat (what Shane didn't beat me to) wearing both my undergarment AND my boat coat (and gloves, and not enough socks). The sun was incredible bright, and the air was as clear as crystal. The snow on both the Olympics and Cascades glistened, and as we motored off, the light hit the downtown skyline and made it glow. The Sound was blue and utterly smooth, and there was not even a whisper of wind. One could stand on the back deck of the Straight Arrow, sheltered by the cabin from the breeze of our passage, and bask in the winter sunlight. Our heads were on swivels, since none of us could decide which of the many directions offered the most spectacular view.
We arrived at China Wall to discover it buoyless. Yes, the buoy Howie had put on the wall was gone; and as we subsequently discovered, the rope was broken about four feet above the rock to which it was moored. I have done this dive before; you motor back and forth, trying to find the dropoff on the depth sounder, and you drop the anchor and splash, and spend half an hour admiring shell rubble before you panic, because you have no idea where the anchor is. I seriously feared the same experience, since none of the male charge-takers seemed particularly confident of what we were doing, but I have done rubble-inspection dives before and been none the worse for them, so I simply waited until the anchor was down and Bob told me which way to go, and then Kirk and I got in the absolutely still water, and descended a vertical anchor line to the gravel. We were to head west, so we did . . . and it got deeper, and deeper, and deeper, and no wall appeared. At about 75 feet, I was quite confident we were doing the rubble dive again, but at 80, there came a rock. And another rock, and a dropoff, and I recognized a deep slot in the slab facing us, and knew we were truly on China Wall.
The next 50 minutes were a delightful slow swim into the current, finding three octopuses, including one near the opening to his hideaway, who was active and I thought might be interactive. He didn't play with us, but later tried to take Laurynn's backup light away from her. Laurynn has a supernatural knack for eliciting encounters with octopuses. It can be amazing, but anyone diving with her should be warned.
It was a winter dive, so life wasn't as abundant as it can be, but we found a number of interesting nudibranchs, rockfish, greenlings (including the palest painted greenlings I have ever seen), and some wonderful shrimp (possibly candy-striped?). At 40 minutes, we turned and drifted back, and I was very happy to know that I would recognize the site where we should head upslope to find the anchor, and I did, and we did, and found it right where it ought to be. An uneventful ascent is something I never take for granted, and this one was smooth and neat, and I only touched the upline at 10 feet, where I simply wanted to make sure I was on the correct side of it not to come up under the hull.
Back on the boat, with a fair amount of assistance (the rail in the center of the ladder baffles me), and we enjoyed the wonderful curried seafood soup that Bob had brought, and my unfortunately too dry cranberry bread, and someone's wonderful brownies. And we motored to Boeing rock reef, a place I had only not been once before. We tried to dive it off Richard's RIB a couple of years ago, but we weren't there, and a lovely 45 minute silt-and-sea-lettuce inspection dive ensued. As with China Wall, we were to do better this time.
Viz was even better here, probably 30 feet, with ambient light down to 60 feet or more. The rocks were covered with metridiums, and although in the early part of the dive, we didn't find anything terribly exciting, later we saw two cabbies in breeding plumage, as well as the strawberry anemone in Bob's photo (although it either hadn't caught the sea star yet, or had swallowed it, because we didn't see the arms). It was a relaxed and lovely 40 minute dive, although by the end, I was definitely shivering, in fine waves of tremors. Again we went up the anchor line, and I embarrassed myself by blowing a stop, not because my buoyancy control was poor, but because I was reading the wrong number on the borrowed Xen I was using, and wondering why my ears told me I was going up, but the depth gauge wasn't reflecting that. If you are looking at the time, it doesn't change that fast!
We were last in the water, and last back on the boat, and Laurynn had her champagne ready to crack, so we could salute the end of the old year and the beginning of the new, in the stunning setting that is Puget Sound on a clear and cold winter's day, and among dear and wonderful diving friends.
"Sometimes, when your world is going sideways, the second best thing to everything working out right, is knowing you are loved..." ljjames
LCF wrote:...finding three octopuses, including one near the opening to his hideaway, who was active and I thought might be interactive. He didn't play with us, but later tried to take Laurynn's backup light away from her...
oh, no--not again!
LCF wrote:....Laurynn has a supernatural knack for eliciting encounters with octopuses. It can be amazing, but anyone diving with her should be warned.
I recommend the experience. bring your tabasco sauce though.....
...I like going to the chamber.. They have great food there, and awsome live music "H20doctor"
Check out the VIDEOS!
Bob: Thanks for the posting. I saw Straight Arrow heading out and wondered. Say hello to Uncle Pug and Shane for me. Your dives look wonderful. Our dives at Keystone weren't much warmer. Air temp 28 and water 42. We were both sporting wet gloves. I thought it hilarious as we struggled with the clips and inflator hoses at the end of diving. At least we could sit in the cafe across the road, look at the view, and cradle the coffee mug in our hands afterward. Celebrating the New Year with coffee? Hey, were from Seattle, right? The day will remain as a classic in my memory. Right behind the New Year's dive in did on San Juan Island in several feet of snow in the mid 80's. May the rest of your year be as glorious.
- Curt (oldsalt)
LCF wrote:...finding three octopuses, including one near the opening to his hideaway, who was active and I thought might be interactive. He didn't play with us, but later tried to take Laurynn's backup light away from her...
oh, no--not again!
LCF wrote:....Laurynn has a supernatural knack for eliciting encounters with octopuses. It can be amazing, but anyone diving with her should be warned.
I recommend the experience. bring your tabasco sauce though.....
It was my light... but the octo was much more interested in my HID and compass. When it pulled on my compass, it snapped back and startled it which produced a rather perplexed look on the octo's face. I suspect that was his first experience with bungie.
GUE Seattle - The official GUE Affiliate in the Northwest!
LCF wrote:...finding three octopuses, including one near the opening to his hideaway, who was active and I thought might be interactive. He didn't play with us, but later tried to take Laurynn's backup light away from her...
oh, no--not again!
LCF wrote:....Laurynn has a supernatural knack for eliciting encounters with octopuses. It can be amazing, but anyone diving with her should be warned.
I recommend the experience. bring your tabasco sauce though.....
<grin> What can I say, I don't believe in boring dives.
But the octopus was after Doug's light this time. I was just rolling film.
Hope to get some footage out and shared tomorrow or Monday evening. It was fantastic, albeit cold, diving. Really great day!
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln, 1809 - 1865 Seainggreen Productions, LLC
LCF wrote:I think it probably is too cold to dive, if you are sane . . . but I doubt many of the people on this board fall into that category!
LOLOL.
Sorry for the wait on video from the day... video's going to get to wait due to unforseen things coming up at work. It's been a long week and it's just now Tuesday.
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln, 1809 - 1865 Seainggreen Productions, LLC
Herewith the quickie grab-n-slap replay of a beautiful day of diving with just a few highlights. Doug and I spent most of our water time dialing in team strategy and lighting techniques, which you'll see more in the second dive in this clip. Be sure to click up to 720p and enjoy!
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln, 1809 - 1865 Seainggreen Productions, LLC
seainggreen wrote:Herewith the quickie grab-n-slap replay of a beautiful day of diving with just a few highlights. Doug and I spent most of our water time dialing in team strategy and lighting techniques, which you'll see more in the second dive in this clip. Be sure to click up to 720p and enjoy!
seainggreen wrote:Herewith the quickie grab-n-slap replay of a beautiful day of diving with just a few highlights. Doug and I spent most of our water time dialing in team strategy and lighting techniques, which you'll see more in the second dive in this clip. Be sure to click up to 720p and enjoy!
It's a pretty cool thing to see... they're nicknamed (or maybe it's their real name?) "swimming anemones" for this reason. It was a very cool thing to see.
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touch the swimming anemone (Stomphia didemon) very gently with just the tip of either a leather star or a red spiny star arm (essentially just the tube feet) and you should get this predation avoidance reaction.
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"I survived the Brittandrea Dorikulla, where's my T-shirt!"
ljjames wrote:touch the swimming anemone (Stomphia didemon) very gently with just the tip of either a leather star or a red spiny star arm (essentially just the tube feet) and you should get this predation avoidance reaction.
