Whidbey Island Critters

[LCF]

That's certainly a feeding frenzy!

[Leslie]

Looks like a bunch of vultures fighting over a carcass.....

[Jan K]

Looks like a bunch of vultures fighting over a carcass.....

or bunch of college students in the fifties ... :biggrin:

[dwashbur]

Idunno, college students in the 50's might have tried to see who could eat the most nudibranchs

[Dusty2]

Amazing, How you find these unusual photo op's continues to amaze me. I have never seen stripped nudies in such numbers!

Your posts are entertaining and very informative. An irresistible combonation.

Please don't stop.

[olyvtx]

Amazing, How you find these unusual photo op's continues to amaze me. I have never seen stripped nudies in such numbers!

Maybe Jan swam around collecting the little suckers and piled them up for their class photo? :biggrin:


Nice find and great photos...as always!

[Jan K]

Thanks. As with most critters, it is a hit or miss situations. I returned to the same spot the next day and although I found plenty of Striped Nudibranchs crawling around, I did not find any piles of them..
Since I had chance to see so many, here are couple more pages dealing with their lives ( or love life )...

[Jan K]

The lighter side of critterwatching...
Somewhere between Roar and Oink - the Grunt Sculpin...

[nwscubamom]

Definitely near OINK. Fun comparison!

[Dusty2]

Yeh, i've even heard them refered to as pig fish! They a cute little guys though. I can never resist a shot or two whenever I see one. I like when they are that wonderful contrasty dark tiger stripe like for your photo.

[Jan K]

Revisited the Sea Pens at Possession Point beach. Lots of snot floating through on the current,
found large Pink Tritonia moving through. With so many Striped nudibranchs all over the place, I knew that the Tritonia had to cross paths with some of them...

[Jan K]

Visibility is improving ! Not stellar yet, but it sure is nice to hover over the white
fields of Plumose anemones and say hello to fish.

[LCF]

Jan, you know we have a number of extremely talented macro photographers on this board (and among my friends). But when you can capture the joy of a wide angle frame like that, you have accomplished something fantastic in Puget Sound water. I looked at that last frame and it brought back the memory of the dives I did this morning with incredible power. Thank you so much for what you do!

[Jan K]

Lynne, I like wide angle photos, unfortunately, our murky waters are not conductive to it.
Yesterday I dove under the old wharf at Keystone and it was soooo relaxing, surrounded by
a school of Rockfish, picture doesn't do it justice, but this is why I love diving...
Here is just a small section of the scene..

[Tom Nic]

Just gorgeous Jan! What a beautiful viz day.... need to make sure I get up to Keystone in the next couple months.

[LCF]

That just became my desktop, Jan.

[dieseldude]

Very nice pic's Jan. I rode the lightening at keystone this morning. Tide was on the way out but the pilings were awesome. I have never even imagined seeing so many Buffalo Sculplin at one time in my wildest dreams. They are all full of color right now too. There was a school of black rockfish swimming in place holding there position against the current. Tough to stay put & get pics but I managed to snap off over 200. Thats alot of shooting for me. Cant wait to get a setup like yours so I can get rid of the backscatter. Found myself in a ginormous school of shiner surfpurch over on the Jetty nestled under the kelp in about 20' of water. More out in the middle I got wrapped up in a school of herring. Very cool 2hrs of diving today. Way to much current to try & make it to the "Barnacle Reef". maybe next time. I sure like your neighborhood!
Off to Edmonds tomorrow. Cant imagine it will even compare.
Thanks for the pics,
Mike

[Jan K]

Mike, glad you enjoyed our Whidbey diving.. There is always something to see here
Monday we ventured little bit offshore, dove the lonely Smith Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Visibility was good, about 30- 35 feet, but the current was strong and the heavy overcast above made
the underwater world look somewhat gloomy. Not much fish, flat bottom with some boulders, kelp.
The coarse sand is only few inches thick, beneath it looks like a hard clay which shows up in places
and creates small ledges in few places. Plenty of dogfish, but very skittish. They would come very close,
but the moment I rise the camera, they dart away, not a good situation for a point & shoot camera..


and few snapshots of the bottom features and of the few inhabitants we encountered:

[Tom Nic]

Loved the Spiny Dogfish pics! Don't get to see those very often.

Thanks for taking us along on your exploratory jaunts. Sigh.... I envy your ability to explore and dive off a boat.

Of course, my Dad said that the definition of a boat was "A hole in the water that a fool pours his money into". And he should know, since he owned a half dozen or so over the years. :biggrin:

[Jan K]

Tom, happy to share what our waters have to offer. Please note, I don't own a boat Having diving and photography for a hobby is bad enough..
On this dive my focusing light didn't work, so I discovered the shrimp only after I looked at the picture on my monitor at home. Well, story of my life.... Better late then never, right?

[Scubak]

As always Jan, beautiful pictures and thanks for sharing...
I love this thread!
Kirsten

[Jan K]

I don't know about this one. Some of the muck which is playing a havoc with our visibility seems to be coming from the Bull Kelp. Long and short stringy snot.. Maybe part of the reproduction cycle? Any ideas ?

[Jan K]

Hiding from the heat - these are from Saturday dive at Maxwelton Beach.
Not very picturesque, sandy plain home to flatfish, Sea lettuce, few Sunflower stars..

[Tom Nic]

Please note, I don't own a boat

Ah, a smart man! Alas, I don't even have friends boats I'm able to mooch off of!

And Wow... that's a lot of CO's! Very nice...

[Jan K]

They seem to be more numerous then in the past, at least at Keystone Jetty. :0