We had a splendid turnout, for a dark and very rainy afternoon at the Coves, with Bellevue and I-90 traffic backed up for MILES as people avoided the 520 tolls . . .
I buddied up with Kees, because I wanted to practice skills. I haven't done a training dive at night in a while, and it SHOWED! Thank you, Kees, for being patient with me. After playing with drills, we went over to the Honey Bear and looked to see if any of the octos were at home, but they weren't. I did find several fun nudibranchs, including several Tritonia festivas, and a Diaulula sandiegensis that was only about a half inch long. And I found, to my delight, TWO Pacific Tom Cod! Thank you, Janna, for the class that allowed me to identify them. I don't think Kees understood what the frantic light signal over a small, inoffensive little fish was all about.
In the water column, when you could see past the seals, were tons of shiner perch and tubesnouts, and among them, a scattering of . . . something ELSE. Whatever it was, it was about four or five inches long, very slender, dark grey-green or grey-blue, and had PINK or magenta on its sides, and it moved REALLY fast and didn't want to be in the light. Juvenile salmon? Is that possible?
Anyway, Peter teamed up with Max and Dave, and went for a critter-hunting photography dive, and they found all kinds of stuff. A little red octo (it's been a long time since I've seen one at Cove 2), a stubby squid, a bunch of gunnels, and a sculpin I can't definitively identify. Peter also saw the tom cod.
Good eyes to spot this guy:
But once he came out of hiding, he was very cute:
One of the bottle gunnels:
We declined the second dive, because I was soaking wet on my left arm (due to the never-to-be-sufficiently-condemned awful SiTech dry glove rings, coupled with an inadequately tight left wrist seal). But about a dozen people were getting ready for a later dunking. Not bad for a rainy night!
WWW dive 1/4/12
WWW dive 1/4/12
"Sometimes, when your world is going sideways, the second best thing to everything working out right, is knowing you are loved..." ljjames
- zekethesheik
- Just Settling In
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:06 pm
Re: WWW dive 1/4/12
I have the SI techs on my Fusion as well....... Leaked on EVERY dive!! I tried everything I read, waxed the oring, seal-savered the oring, licked the oring (gets the dive groups attention).. Then found a buddy to help me "snap" them on.. Haven't been wet since..
Steve
Steve
Re: WWW dive 1/4/12
Yeah, but if the buddy gets them even the slightest bit off kilter, WHAM -- pinched o-ring and wet hand. I'm grumpy about these right now.
"Sometimes, when your world is going sideways, the second best thing to everything working out right, is knowing you are loved..." ljjames
Re: WWW dive 1/4/12
Awesome pics Lynne!!! Yeah ditto on the great turn out!! I think in summer we will have a regular dive mob goin!!
"I believe that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade... And try to find somebody whose life has given them vodka, and have a party" - Ron White