Day Island Wall 08.21.07

[sandman98007]

Kirsten and I were able to catch the great slack tide and what a dive it was. The current pushed us north and the dive profile changed a little, but oh what a dive. After about 20 minutes the 1 knot current died and off we go. We were pushed north and did a little exploring. Found a wolfie and he was a little friendly. Kir played with him for awhile and I moved a little further north. I looked into a crevice and low and behold … OCTO Zilla … He was huge. His tentacles’ were as big as Kir’s arm. The photos you see are of this big guy. My camera was too large to get into the space, so the shots are from Kir. Played with him for awhile and headed south. Explored around and found sculpin, hermit crabs, rock fish galore, a mated pair of wolf eels, and the whole variety of Puget Sound life. Maxed depth to 84 feet and turned the dive. At around 56 feet, just as we were about to crest the wall, we peered into another crevice and another huge GPO was there. This one larger than the first. We tried to get some shots, but he was so far back into the crevice that none came out. It has been awhile since we have seen the behemoths and it is great to see them back. We stay around and after acquiring about 5 minutes of deco, we headed up. While in the kelp area we found gunnels galore, and we experienced the strangest thing. As we hovered over the kelp, and passed our lights over it, these flashing things would dart out in all directions. They were so fast that we could not tell what they were. One actually crashed into my chest, though I did not notice. We both felt like we were in a popcorn popper. We laughed out butts off, and that isn’t so easy underwater. Later we found out that they were probable sand lances.

84 feet for 75 minutes. What a day at the office.

Here are the shots, compliments of Cpt. Bungee and ScubaK.

http://www.flickr.com/gp/80573434@N00/HjrNXj

Don’t forget to click “View as slideshow” in the upper right had corner above the collage of pictures.

Please enjoy.

 

[sarita75]

Wow! Those are beautiful photographs! Thank you very much for sharing.

 

[TSandM]

Great gunnel pictures! I love those little guys.

 

[scubak]

Oh we had a great time!!!
And it was so great to see the BIG GPO's again!!!!
The sand lance popcorn happening was really funny. Tim and I were laughing our regs off.
It was also nice to see alot of people I haven't seen in awhile...Good to see everyone!
Great dive...
K

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

It was great to see the big GPO's again ... let's hope the fellow who "harvested" them the last time doesn't decide to come back and do it again ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Cory_nw]

thank you for sharing your photo's , very nice,
my Son and I dove DIW on Monday, we dove the South Wall, lots of Wolf eels, and one
BIG GPO, it's been awhile since we've seen one that big, this one was about middle of the wall, back in a den, we even had a few dog fish follow us as we drifted along the wall,
Cory