Peanut Butter Jelly Time

[MaxBottomtime]

With gale force winds and deadly surf conditions I knnew there would be no diving this weekend. Merry and I went down to the marina to adjust our dock lines and pout about another non diving weekend. As we were leaving we spotted a jelly, Scrippsia pacifica floating next to the dock. I ran back to the boat and grabbed a bucket and scooped the little feller up. After taking a few surface photos we released it into the wild. I jumped into the choppy water to get a few shots from just under the surface.

 

[keithbt]

cool, l I just pouted... hopefully tomorrow...

 

[TSandM]

I really love these ultra-detailed pictures you guys are getting of the pelagic jellies! Look at the sieving cilia inside the bell -- my guess is that none of us have been able to resolve one of these critters well enough to see those. What a fantastic set of images!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

It's worse than that. Those are its gonads! It's mouth is the frilly quadrant just below them.

 

[koozemani]

I really love these ultra-detailed pictures you guys are getting of the pelagic jellies! Look at the sieving cilia inside the bell -- my guess is that none of us have been able to resolve one of these critters well enough to see those. What a fantastic set of images!

What she said.

 

[Mossman]

Eww, you jumped into marina water? Isn't that filled with bilge and all sorts of other unmentionables? (Nice jelly shots, though!)

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Sometimes you just have to get in the water.
Some of my best shots have come from dock pilings and the silty bottom surrounding them. I stand under the hose for a long time after diving there.

 

[FuzzyNutz]

Thanks A-hole. I just got a new camera, haven't used it yet, and I already wanna throw rocks at it from looking at your pics. Great photos!!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

 

[Mossman]

Sometimes you just have to get in the water.
Some of my best shots have come from dock pilings and the silty bottom surrounding them. I stand under the hose for a long time after diving there.

I guess it's no different than muck diving somewhere like Lembah Strait, except that it's a lot closer (and a lot colder). I love photographing nudis in warm water and I know we have a diverse selection out here, but I've been resisting the temptation to get back into the cold. Your photos are like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. I want to see these nudis with my own eyes (and camera), but sampling that fruit would make me leave the comfort of my Edenic warm-water wimpiness that I've fallen into, for the surge, low viz, and cold of SoCal waters.

Fortunately I have a WW trip coming up really soon and I'm getting my camera wet for the first time in almost two years (had a poorly-timed malfunction that left me anti-camera for a while). But after that, too poor to travel thus with no WW in the near future for me, I just may sample that fruit and hit you up for some recs on mucky dock pilings and other nudi sites that don't require a boat to get to. If the bug bites and I become a cold water diver again, it'll be your fault!