Northwest Dive Club

The currents get little crazy sometimes even at the Pilings



and lets add a little color

Great report, sure sounds like MUST DO place. Looking forward to see your pictures. Starting to save money for that trip

Friends from California wanted to see what Whidbey has to offer - so Keystone was our playground, even if the tides (Low) or currents (Strong) were not the most accommodating. We all had good time nevertheless. They are planning to return next year :supz: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1285/12468377...

Back to the home waters of Whidbey Island. Lots of young rockfish, from Black, Yellowtail and Copper, with few Puget Sounders mixed in, facing the Keystone currents, hover and feed in it - just simple pleasure to swim with them in the last days of summer ... :supz: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/115...

This one I did not find at Keystone, but on my snorkeling venture in British Columbia - I wish I had my dive gear and my camera gear, but since it is a free swimming slug, maybe it will show up at Keystone some day. For your enjoyment: the Sea Angel :D http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1078/1215198777_...

What a wonderful collection of photographs - in spite of the limitations you mention, you brought back a load of treasure - thanks for sharing, as it is raining and gray outside - these colors are so uplifting!

They are reported as being common elsewhere, but I found only single individual at Keystone Jetty. Maybe not rough water enough for them.

Not a good feeling...

Most of the time, the Sunflower Star is involved in some unsavory action, usually eating some other invertebrate or even another Sunflower star. So I was surprised to find a scores of tiny crabs finding comfort in the arms of one of the marauders.. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1272/1066987723_a132...

Very nice - very unusual setting for the Grunt Sculpin. The Buffalo sculpin is smiling while the rockfish doesn't look too happy, great shot. Jackie doesn't use regulator underwater anymore? How are the gills working? :)The whole set of pics shows that you did have fun.

When I got to the scene, the crab was not struggling at all, so I don't really know how it got in there, I see sometimes crabs hiding next to the anemones, and not getting caught. Maybe the crabbing was closed..

Second question, what kind of lighting are you using for it? Built-in flash or external strobe? Single or dual strobes?. Sorry, forgot to mention the lighting - Ikelite DS-125 external, single strobe. I started with Ikelite DS-50, but the battery compartment kept on flooding. I am thinking about ad...

[quote="Sounder" I think having a way to print all his works to date and put them in a book that could be continuously added to would be perfect... Jan's work is like a cell phone - the minute you get it, it's out-dated.[/quote] Sounder, funny you mentioned it, that was one of the hurdles ...

Kirsten, I am always open to suggestions, if there is somebody who knows about publishing, well, lets see what can be done, thanks .

Sea of Green: I have Olympus C-8080 in Ikelite housing, it is a Point and Shoot camera, the lens is fixed, 7.1 - 35.6 mm zoom (digital #s).

Well, thank you all - your kind words are encouraging. So on we go with Whidbey Island critters. It seems that the Oregon Hairy Triton is about finished with their parenting job - many of the egg capsule spirals are empty. Next time you have the chance to watch the Triton lay eggs, stop and watch th...

Interesting development in the bivalve ID story. After more consultations between experts in California, e-mail this morning changed the California Lyonsia classification to Rock Entodesma aka Northwest Ugly Clam (Entodesma navicula). Never a dull moment in the Invertebrates realm. Even experts make...

Thank you Valerie for kind words, for moment I thought nobody looks at these posts anymore :pale: And of course, you are right about the worn out appearance of gravid females. It has to be hard to carry the load and watch out for all the Lingcod looking for easy meal who lay around the Keystone Jett...

It looks like we get some more rockfish at Keystone soon

Great! What a story ! Thanks.

This one was not easy to identify. In the beginning I leaned toward Pandora genus, but could not google any pictures, I e-mailed picture to more experienced people, many are in the field working on research projects (vacations :D ), finally Leslie from Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County fo...

Great story from beginning to the end. Great job! It only shows that where there is a will, there is a way.. Hope that the bird will fly again some day. Thhat shoud be the photo we all will be waiting for

Local crabs never cease to amaze me. This is the first time I found Dungeness Crab holding Red Rock Crab in what I saw somewhere called as the premating embrace. In the past I saw them fighting, ignoring each other, but never hugging. The smaller Red Rock crab was not showing any signs of distress o...

Hi Ken, the Pipefish is not that common here on Whidbey, or maybe it is because my eyes are not that good... The next critter is little easier to spot, wearing a nice bright orange color. But this is the color of the future King, as the adult Kings are more varied in texture and colors. Unfortunatel...

Our Pacific Northwest sea horse taking parenting seriously...

What got my attention at this encounter was first the white color of the Giant Sea Cucumber (aka California Cucumber). When I turned to investigate the murky water movement, I found that a large Sunflower Star was trying to capture it. It was very interesting to watch how the cucumber inflated its b...