Ft Wetherill (Tropical Paradise) report from today

[ScubaSarus]

Dives done:

70 min around island down to 90ft.
70 min through crevass to 35 ft.
Wore 7mm Bare Full and completely cozy.

Conditions:

Vis - 10-20 ft
Water Temps - 72 F
Waves - none completely flat
Weather - Very sunny and warm and dry.
Parking - get there around 9:30 am for best spots.

Sealife:
Giant tautog (wont disclose - don't want spearfishermen there), giant stripers at 70ft tip of island, yellow puffer with black beady eyes and horns, spotfins galore on ledges and in nooks, trumpet fish, and long narrow fish with pointy nose, jelly fish, loads of beaded jellyfish.

Of interest:
New large anchor in Western Cove.
One lost diver I assisted in getting her back to her group.
Anemones coming back a bit.

Please forgive the fuzziness of these pics as I don't have a strobe and am using a Sealife lowend camera. I am new at using it underwater. The vids came out better but I have no hosting site yet.

 

[fineout]

from what ive heard, the new anchor was placed by the guy that owns giant stride, i wanna go take a dive in wetherill since i havent been there since i took my OW cert.

 

[Tampico_ED]

I was planning to go this weekend to videotape the tropicals...but the Scuba Cuco got me....those are nice shots.

http://media.diccionariolibre.com/i/e/el_cuco_72.jpg

http://media.diccionariolibre.com/i/e/el_cuco_73.jpg

 

[dave4868]

Thanks for posting the report and pics!

This sounds like a perfect time of year to go back to Wetherill and I'm very tempted after reading your report!

Dave C

 

[SadiesMom]

Nice butterflyfish shot!!! I'm so glad you saw a trumpetfish as well - I was thinking for a minute there that I was seeing things!

God, I love that we get tropicals here!

 

[ScubaSarus]

Tampico ; you are still the master of photography IMO. Hope to see more of you pics soon. Thanks all for the kind words and hope everyone gets out to see the tropicals this year.

 

[Just Phish]

I posted this in another thread but I am adding some pictures and videos so I'll just paste my other reply here.

I dove there on Thursday 28Aug. The water temp according to my gauge was 62 at best and the jellies made it look like a blizzard underwater. I dove for three hours and I saw and caught one tropical, a spot fin butterfly. I didn't find a single other tropical. Everyone else in the water I spoke to all said they hadn't seen any either. There was some big hoopla going on about the anchor. Last I saw it, it's very close to the boat ramp and on the left side. Park rangers were getting involved and everything. I wouldn't have known anything was going on were it not for the woman ranger who seemed not to have an inside voice.

I was very disappointed getting skunked on the tropicals. I have never been and not seen a plentiful amount. I don't know any other areas to go for tropicals either. Can anyone direct me? I was so hoping to get a lionfish this year.

Here's a pic of the jellyfish mess.

I forgot that starfish don't spook as easily as fish so I got too close and couldn't remember where the macro setting was on my housing.

A little starfish love.

The anchor just off the boat ramp when I left.

And some videos.
This one shows all the jellyfish. 115mb
http://www.justphish.com/28aug08/MVI_0732.avi

Local fish and landscape. 57mb
http://www.justphish.com/28aug08/MVI_0735.avi

Bluefish chasing the baitfish. 40mb
http://www.justphish.com/28aug08/MVI_0737.avi

More local fish 50mb
http://www.justphish.com/28aug08/MVI_0738.avi

And a video of the anchor. 47mb
http://www.justphish.com/28aug08/MVI_0743.avi

 

[SadiesMom]

The jellyfish mess you got are actually salps - non-stinging pelagic tunicates that colonize in long chains. I saw them 2 weeks ago, too - asked a marine biologist friend and he ID'd 'em for me. Apparently they're much more common out at Block Island and don't usually get inshore - must be a warm eddy from the Gulf Stream that brought 'em in and the waves have kept them pushed up in the cove...

 

[RIOceanographer]

Yep, those are definitely salps, Thalia democratica to be specific. I saw quite a few of them on the USS Bass today and a bunch on the Neptune last week and on the U853 the week before so they are basically all over right now. However, none of those sites had the kind of abundance in your picture.

 

[Just Phish]

The jellyfish mess you got are actually salps - non-stinging pelagic tunicates that colonize in long chains. I saw them 2 weeks ago, too - asked a marine biologist friend and he ID'd 'em for me. Apparently they're much more common out at Block Island and don't usually get inshore - must be a warm eddy from the Gulf Stream that brought 'em in and the waves have kept them pushed up in the cove...

They were only part of the soup. There was a ton of other small round ones and larger bio-lumenescent jellies as well.