I went out to Fox Island west wall yesterday with my buddies Andy and Mark. Based upon our recent dives we weren't too sure about what the viz would be with the spring bloom. When we arrived we found a stiff south wind was blowing up a fair amount of chop on a very low tide, not the best conditions for sure. Despite the churning of the shoreline muck we decided to brave it and we're glad we did.
The west island wall can be a challenge to find sometimes even in the best of circumstances. Luck smiled on us and to my surprise, I felt my fin hit something hard as we dropped. Great luck! And the viz was actually fairly decent, about 15 feet or so once we reached the wall at 45 feet.
West Wall has an interesting assortment of nudibranchs, due to the combination of sandy mud meeting the short rocky wall. Its always been a great place to find Pink Tritonia Tritonia diomedea and we found over a dozen like this fellow.
There were countless tiny Flabellina trilineata as well, along the upper rocks of the wall. These tiny guys drive you crazy because you just can't resist trying to get good sharp photos of something as small as a grain of rice.
I was just down in Monterey CA a couple of weeks ago and saw some of these as well. In California the trilineata show orange-tipped rhinopores , whereas here in Puget Sound they are always white. Here's one from Monterey
We've been seeing Janolus fuscus more frequently this spring than we have in several years, and we weren't disappointed here either. Janolus f. are one of the most lovely nudibranchs around here to photograph.
I'm not used to paying much attention to Sea Cucumbers Parastichopus californicus, but I saw this fellow extruding something that looked likes eggs, but after looking up its reproductive behavior I found that they can extrude these filaments from their body to 'confuse predators'. Weird looking though.
A fun dive overall.
Dan
Fox Island West Wall Nudibranchs
- dphershman
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Fox Island West Wall Nudibranchs
Dan Hershman
Re: Fox Island West Wall Nudibranchs
Nice assortment, like the Pink tritonia especially. Not big deal but they changed the name from T.diomedea to Tritonia tetraquetra. Lot of people unhappy about it ...
http://JanKocian.smugmug.com
I take photos because I like it, not because I'm good at it. by Unknown
I take photos because I like it, not because I'm good at it. by Unknown
- dphershman
- Aquanaut
- Posts: 697
- Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2008 11:42 am
Re: Fox Island West Wall Nudibranchs
Jan K wrote:Nice assortment, like the Pink tritonia especially. Not big deal but they changed the name from T.diomedea to Tritonia tetraquetra. Lot of people unhappy about it ...
Those darn scientists, always changing things!
Dan Hershman
- dphershman
- Aquanaut
- Posts: 697
- Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2008 11:42 am
Re: Fox Island West Wall Nudibranchs
Jan K wrote:Nice assortment, like the Pink tritonia especially. Not big deal but they changed the name from T.diomedea to Tritonia tetraquetra. Lot of people unhappy about it ...
Those darn scientists, always changing things!
Dan Hershman