A December to Remember

[MXGratefulDiver]

I've had a great month of local diving ... mostly at my local mudhole just a couple miles from my house, but also some nice trips up to Whidbey Island, Edmonds Underwater Park, and down to Hood Canal. I've managed 20 dives, with one more to do tomorrow night with a friend.

Earlier this year I built a small rock reef in about 60 feet of water just south of Redondo, and after watching it like an expectant father for the past few months, over the past week three octopus have moved in. In fact the whole reef just seems to have loaded up on life over the past few weeks, with grunt sculpins and gunnels digging in for the winter.

Thought I'd share some pics from this month of diving in Puget Sound.

Where have you been? Show us some of your memories of diving in December ...







... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[James R]

Bob, what are you shooting? Body/lens?

Really nice photos!! I'm gonna try to get up to the PNW for some diving sometime soon...amazing

 

[Imla]

Nice photos. Interesting to see how similar the creatures are to what we have at home here in Norway. Still, there are differences...

 

[MaxBottomtime]

After a great October and November in SoCal we experienced a mixed bag of conditions in December. We also had mechanical issues with our boat for two weeks, which I hope to have resolved this afternoon. We had nice conditions last Saturday, so I'm looking forward to 2014, as 2013 was one of my better years of diving. We'll be heading up Bob's way at the end of September to see what this nonsense of diving without waves is all about.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Bob, what are you shooting? Body/lens?

Really nice photos!! I'm gonna try to get up to the PNW for some diving sometime soon...amazing

Canon T2i (cropped sensor DSLR). Those pics were taken with either a 60mm macro lens or my 18-55 zoom.

Let me know when you can make it up ... if I can possibly manage it, I'd enjoy showing you around ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[James R]

Cool, I have a DX body (Nikon) and the 105 VR macro. I will probably pick up a 60 macro before Lembeh just in case the 105 is too long.

I will let you know about a trip up there, I'd love to meet up with you and go for some dives.

Thanks,

 

[Larry C]

Great shots, Bob. Building your own reef, that's awesome! Next thing you know they'll be sinking old ships and stuff and the critters will show up to live on them. Rock on.
Max-love the Cabezon with eggs. I took a bunch of those yesterday. It must be the season. Mine had red eggs. We'll see how they came out next week when the slides come back.

 

[Steve_C]

Enjoyed the pictures.

Thanks to a serious head cold from an otherwise darling grandson, December is a zero dive wise, however the end of November was a couple of great dives in Catalina and the first week in Jan is in the Florida Keys.

So pardon a photo from the end of November. Not by me but is of me.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

A couple more shots from my final dive of December ... and of 2013 ...

I love the "puppy dog" look of the snailfish ...



... and an unusually colored lumpsucker ... I found seven and they were all different colors ...



2013 was a good year ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)