Northwest Dive Club

Jan, you do absolutely the best ever diving-themed Christmas images. But my favorite is still the cave one. I loved sending out each and every one of those cards.

Hi Jan
Great photos as always. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you.
We'll have to resolve to try to dive together next year. Are you going to the club dive?

YellowEye wrote:Hi Jan
Great photos as always. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you.
We'll have to resolve to try to dive together next year. Are you going to the club dive?

Let me know when you plan to visit our local spots, I don't travel much anymore off Whidbey these days ...

Well, the Wasting Syndrome menace reached Whidbey's Possession Point now :(

Surveying another site. Signs of Sea Star Wasting Syndrome appearing ...

It is so wonderful to see photos of healthy sunflower stars. I miss them; our central Sound sites are far less colorful and interesting without them.

The disease is creeping up upon Whidbey, Keystone is being affected now too. :(


Holmes Harbor is OK for the time being ...

searching for stars - south to north

Yet another educational entry! Thanks, Jan! I don't think I have ever seen one of these.

LCF wrote:Yet another educational entry! Thanks, Jan! I don't think I have ever seen one of these.

Lynne, in all these years, this was my second sighting. And they are not rare, they say ...

And what about adding two new names to my list, Feather duster and snail which feeds on it.
Although I have passed over them many, many times, I didn't know.
It keeps me diving, I learned about the tiny white snails just yesterday ...

This was the first time I saw a Sunflower star snatch something off its back. I did not see the sculpin land on the top of the sea star, I expected to get a shot of it posing, but as I was setting my camera to macro mode, I saw the star grabbing the hapless fish and move it fast towards its stomach on the underside. I really don't know if the fish was dead since I did not see it swim up the star. No idea how it got up there, no rocks, no floating dock overhead...

Rather timely since Craig McClain was just writing about his research on communities of wood boring organisms off Monetary at Deep Sea News today.

Seeing some of the Mottled stars with unusual bumps on arms.
I wonder if it is tied to the disease...

I wonder how they manage to lay eggs INSIDE the tunicate ...

Another week of sea star wasting surveys on Whidbey. Most locales with bad visibility . Something to do with wind and rain.
The disease keeps going on, but not at the same massive die-off scenes reported elsewhere.

Its late for Christmas wreaths, but that looks neat!

After long time, I came across another Lingcod cleaning scene.

Another week of Sea Star Wasting surveys in local waters. Although sick stars are found on most dives,
there are plenty of healthy sea stars still around.

Deception Pass revisited for yet another Sea Star Wasting survey.
Still healthy population, the one Mottled sea star arm does not necessarily mean
that it is a wasting disease. I hope it is not and although the sea stars there are not
as numerous as they are or were elsewhere, they add nice diversity to the place.
Visibility was good and thew sunshine topside made it look almost tropical.
Enjoy.