Northwest Dive Club

and so we enjoy the birds and the fishies

Adding another critter to the list ...

What a great week , got to dive the Pass from Monday to Friday !
Some of the weeks snapshots, got a backlog to work on...

Spawning sea stars part of the attraction:

And Spring spawning goes on and on ...

Marek, thank you for your kind words. As I told you, I am really happy when I see a new diver excited as you are about what our Salish Sea has to offer. There is yet so much we don't know. Or more specifically, I don't know. That is why every dive in every locality at any time offers new discoveries and provides us with new questions.
Like we encountered yesterday. Red Irish Lord are described as being solitary critters. So since they were not guarding eggs,
why they were so many of them in small area of the wall ? Maybe somebody will let me know ...

Jan K wrote:Marek, thank you for your kind words. As I told you, I am really happy when I see a new diver exited as you are about what our Salish Sea has to offer.

Jan, there is at least one non-new (old? used?) diver who is excited about what the Salish Sea has to offer and looks forward to your posts with eager anticipation.
-Curt

Love it Jan!

I have learned so much from this thread . . . it is, among other things, a testimonial to the value of diving and learning a site, until your eyes can pick out the unusual and spot behavior. The combination of the superb photography and the artwork is unique and perpetually delightful.

Jan, you know I think you should publish a book . . .

Dear fellow Divers,
I have seen a lot of encouragement to Jan over the years in this chain of postings to publish a bigger book. I have been strongly encouraging him as well.
Until our feedback and momentum reaches the critical mass and Jan decides to publish a larger book we can support Jan by buying and spreading the word about his 2008 20 page photo book ”Beneath the Whidbey Waters”. I believe that this existing book is already a treasure for several groups of people: new divers, new to Puget Sound divers, old divers looking to see new things and none divers who have no idea how magical world is here in Puget Sound.
If everybody would think and act how to support Jan in further sharing his talents, we could move the mountains.
Jan recently reordered print of his book and has some copies available with the new cover.
I personally decided to buy several of his books and I will donate 1 book to each dive shop I am a customer: Bubbles Below in Woodinville and Silent World in Bellevue.
The purpose is to have store copy on display and spark interest. If someone wants to buy then for now will still need to e-mail Jan and send check unless dive shops will come up with some arrangement with Jan.
This is just my tiny contribution and commitment.
If anyone has any other ideas, please share.

This book thing keeps popping up seems like once a year
If I wasn't so busy diving, I would enjoy to put something together. But then I realize that there isn't that much demand for books anymore, and the whole thing just fades back into background.
I keep few of the old ones around to give out as gifts, mainly to non divers who keep asking the same old question: "What do you see down there?" You know what I am talking about, every diver suiting up or getting out of dive gear gets this questions by bystanders ...
So meanwhile - I keep diving, pressing the shutter and manage now and then add another critter to my list.
One new and one old from the transparent jelly sphere:

old:

Oh, I am envious! I try so hard to get photos of those small jellies, and you have many of them!

Chasing a very little crab in the currents of Deception Pass while trying to lock the autofocus on it -
well, not too sharp, but another first to add to my list.
Thanks Greg for helping ID it for me.

Still trying to catch up with the backlog from last week ...

Very cool! I've never seen the cucumber eggs.

And more spawning critters...
This is first for me, these small chitons are usually just sticking to the rock they feed on

Keystone is overrun with these guys. Their diet is indeed varied. They even eat their own kind.
So arm of a wasting sea star is probably not that bad

Sea Star Wasting Syndrome starting to kill again after a brief pause in March :(

Marek, thank you for your kind words, I am glad you found my postings helpful.

I might say that I found my inspiration in works of others, of course the Silent World
by J.Cousteau, Hans Hass as the most influential, but so was another work which
predates them -20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne...
Captain Nemo and his Nautilus saga revisited:

Brilliant! The de Neuville drawings remind me of the Dore illustrations you used earlier. We share similar inspirations. I gave my copies of Silent World and Manta (by Hans Hass) to my god-grandson last month. They continue to inspire, as do you. Thanks again, Curt

Thank you Curt, we are standing on the shoulders of giants
Couple days ago, enjoying the sights of Deception Pass, I came across a stranded Kelp Greenling male. I think I saw this fish swimming around during may last dive here, but then it was still able to swim around and would flee when I approached it.
This time the long fishing line he was trailing behind got so entangled in Sponges and kelp that with the help of my fellow NWDC buddy Marek Sk, we were able to cut him free...

"Face only mother could like" comes to mind when looking at the Rock sole...

Added new slug to my list, really small, maybe a quarter of inch long.

Sea Star Wasting is rearing up its ugly head again :(