Northwest Dive Club

cardiver wrote: THIS LAST SHOT IS A LUMPSUCKER THAT PENELOPE SPOTTED. IT WAS THE SIZE OF A PEA AND MY CAMERA WOULDN'T LOCK ON TO IT. IT IS THE FIRST ONE I HAVE EVER SEEN. THANKS PENELOPE!

You are quite welcome, that was a fun dive! Did you see the stubby squid on the second dive?

The stubby was on our way back in from the second dive at about 30 fsw.

Great pics Ron - and boy, Redondo sure is loaded with critters, even when the viz is crappy.

Keep the viz reports coming - I think a thread like this has value for those who want to "check in" and see how things are viz wise at Puget Sound dive sites. But it only works if we post!

And I would have contributed this week but my neck seal decided to "split", as in leave, be done, I've had it, see ya later, bu bye! The good folks at A2Z do have it repaired (in less than a week!) so hopefully I'll be back in the water soon.

Langley Tire Reef, Friday 8th, morning. 5' first twenty feet, then decent 20-25 feet on the reef, "snot" floating through in all depths.

Jan K wrote:Langley Tire Reef, Friday 8th, morning. 5' first twenty feet, then decent 20-25 feet on the reef, "snot" floating through in all depths.

Oooo! Oooo! I understand that floating "snot" sometimes means that there will be a congealing of the particles and a subsequent sinking or washing away, which will generally mean a spate of pretty good viz in the next week or two!

(Who would have thunk that I'd ever be getting excited about "snot"?!?) Although before I get too excited your report is from Langley and I'm in the South Sound.

Forgot one pic from last night. First hooded nudi that I've seen!

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Penopolypants wrote:

cardiver wrote: THIS LAST SHOT IS A LUMPSUCKER THAT PENELOPE SPOTTED. IT WAS THE SIZE OF A PEA AND MY CAMERA WOULDN'T LOCK ON TO IT. IT IS THE FIRST ONE I HAVE EVER SEEN. THANKS PENELOPE!

You are quite welcome, that was a fun dive! Did you see the stubby squid on the second dive?

Thank you Penelope! If it was not for you, we would definately have missed it. It was at something like 85 feet!
My first thought was "We came down to 85 feet to see that tiny thing?" Be it small or not Penelope came through for us!
And now I can say after dive # 216, I finally saw a Lumpsucker! :occasion5: Excelent pictures Ron!
Yes, The stubby Squid was on our second dive. It was the largest Stubby Squid I've ever seen! About the size of your average Computer Mouse.
We also saw the Hooded Nudi on the second dive. Vis was terrible but we saw alot of stuff,{On both dives} including a very large Rat Fish. I was watching this little wormy thing about three inches long. It had thousands of little legs and it was going nuts and then, I saw the Rat Fish eat it. That was cool! We also saw a few larg Dungies but they were both female.

I forgot about the ratfish, Keith! Deffintely the biggest one I've ever seen, too. I was still laughing to myself today, thinking about the viz while finning back in to the steps. It litteraly seemed like someone had smeared vaseline all over my mask!

I know, Keith, it probably seemed a little anti-climactic. I tried to find a larger one but alas. Sounds like I missed a pretty spectacular second dive too.

Great job on shooting the SMB though. That was cool!

Viz tonight was reported to be green goo at Redondo, so we changed plans and went to Cove 2, where it was 10-15 feet.

Netarts Bay 15 - 18 feet

Yea! my suits in for repairs and the viz is crapy

At least I don't have to sit at home and hear about the wonderful viz at site X that I missed. :smt038

Penopolypants wrote: Great job on shooting the SMB though. That was cool!

Yes Thanks For helping me with the SMB. I still need some practice, but it went better than my first try.
Crappy Vis didn't make that any easier. But I could see in certain situations where someone might need to shoot a tube if the vis was that bad on a open water/boat dive.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge! It helped alot!

Did the Alki Pipeline yesterday afternoon. A nice 1h27min dive.

Viz was up to 25' at times, down to 8' or so in murky clouds brought by the current. But overall, I was able to see the sun's reflection on the surface for most of the dive.

First time there - that's a very neat site full of life! And very colorful as it's fairly shallow. Lots of orange sea pen which were really shining under the sun.

Skyline Wall and Keystone today -- Two beautiful dives, full of color, and the viz was at least 20 feet at both sites.

7/9/08

DIW - vaired, but roughly 20'

Fox Island West Wall - 5' down to about 20fsw, gradually opened up to 15-20' at 50fsw

lake was good vis today. serious themocline right at 40 feet.

Waterman's Wall was probably 10-20 down at depth (150 or so), less close to the surface.

Bainbridge Island fingers had a snotty 15-20 or so, maybe a bit less in places.

Dove the Possession Point Ferry yesterday (8/10), viz was ~30' horizontal. Could see the surface shimmer at 50' during a mid-water stop. Great dive, lotsa fun.

My son snapped a couple of shots of this poor fellow, ouch!

Owen Beach 8/7 5-10 ft at depth
Owen Beach 8/8 10-15 ft at depth
Sunrise 8/10 15-20 ft
Sunrise 8/11 15-20 ft
Day Island Wall 8/11 15-20 ft (best guess since it was a night dive...hehehe)
Owen Beach 8/12 5-10 ft at depth

We did Redondo last night after work--viz was CRAP! (Plus a lot of getting knocked about by waves!) So is there really no better way to predict visibility other than just turning up at the water to see how it is? (Sorry, I'm new PNW diving and I'm trying to sort out how to best plan my trips!)

TTN, Thursday the 14th, 15' shallow, 25-30' at depth. Pretty nice, actually, especially for a very low tide!

Edmonds Oil Dock Wednesday evening (Aug 13th) between 6-7pm: Anywhere from 10-25ft. Worse close to shore, better at the T.

Thanks, Tom Nic, for the info--we tried TTN for the first time last night and it was spectacular! Vis was easily 20-30 feet once we got down a bit (around 40 feet and beyond) Saw several ratfish and a red octo along with tons of other cool critters!! Very cool. We'll definitely be diving here again!

Bassman and I did a dive at 3TN last night at 1900. Viz was crappy above 30 fsw but opened up to around 20 fsw at depth.



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We dove the Mukilteo Oil Dock last night for a crab run. Vis was 20 - 25 ft once we got away from the snot that was built up close to shore.

This was our first time diving the oil docks. I have never seen so many crabs and ratfish in one place. The crab hunt was almost spooky and reminded me of a scene in War of the Worlds (Spielberg version) in how we would hover over the top of the colonies, scoop up a crab, check it's sex, measure it, and throw it in the bag. The oil dock itself is a cool divesite and I plan on doing it again just to check out the marine life in the pilings.