Here is a link to "The Wides": Link
Here is a link to the entire 1-19-08 Rigs Gallery: Link
We did three dives on the Rig Eureka on Saturday. The plan was to shoot wide angle for the first two dives (thinking the viz would be better in the morning) and shoot the 105 Macro for dive three. Of course, the viz improved for the third dive...
If you've never dived the Rigs, you really can't imagine the density of life that covers every square inch of exposed rope, cable, piling, column and platform. There is nothing down there that doesn't have stuff growing on it.
Metridiums, brittle stars and corynactus anemones of all colors, clams, scallops, hydroids, mussles, and lots and lots of Nudis. Its just so thick and dense down there. I love Macro diving the rigs.
Ken Liu (our third for this dive) was in a wetsuit. And as we only brought one battery for the scooters, I figured we'd take the scoots to get to depth but kick most of the dive. Ken was probably gonna get a little cold on this one. Look at the profile, and you can see how smooth Macro diving is... we were crawling our way back up, scouring and hunting for interesting stuff to shoot.
Dive Three
Ken didn't say a word, except to state "dive three was a bit cooler than dive two..." What a gamer!
The Sea Lions became impatient with us and our slow process up the rig, and instead of meeting us at 45 feet, many of them dived down to 65 feet to come and meet us.
Once again, I saw no blue Nudis on the rigs. There were none of the very common Nudis we have along the shore - Fed Ex, Mexichromis or McFarands. The most common Nudis on the rigs are Hermissenda, followed by Trilineata's and Stearnsi's. Saw some Sandys, saw some Dendy's, some Tata's and a Cuthona. White, white, white (and yellowish...) No Blue Nudis. Very strange.
Here are some Macro shots.
Enjoy.
---
Ken
Hermi on a huge gray sponge - Claudette called me over to see this sponge. This thing was the size of a mini-van, growing upright in a corner. I looked in, and smack in the middle of it was a teeny Hermi.
Mini Meddy - these guys are all over the place.
Dendy with some Trilinny's and some of those wacky teeny shelled insect things that are crawling all over the place... Its not uncommon to see two or three species of Nudi's in the same frame. We saw 5 species on one fist-sized bolt.
Slice O' Life - I dropped to my stomach and shot prone along one of the many cross braces, just to give you an idea of what things look like at beam-level. There are a few brittle stars on the Rigs.
A juicy TriLinny. The two principal varieties these guys come in are Red and yellow-ish. This was the only Red one I saw on Dive 3.
I love the clams and their wacky fringe. Here is a shot of one.
Here's the same guy from another angle
Hermi on the rust. They seem to like the rust, as whenever there is a cable or some other exposed steel that is rusting a bit, there is generally a hermissenda on it.
.
.
.
.
Huge thanks to Claudette and Ken for a great day and three excellent dives!
.
.
.
.
.
Here is a link to the entire 1-19-08 Rigs Gallery: Link
We did three dives on the Rig Eureka on Saturday. The plan was to shoot wide angle for the first two dives (thinking the viz would be better in the morning) and shoot the 105 Macro for dive three. Of course, the viz improved for the third dive...
If you've never dived the Rigs, you really can't imagine the density of life that covers every square inch of exposed rope, cable, piling, column and platform. There is nothing down there that doesn't have stuff growing on it.
Metridiums, brittle stars and corynactus anemones of all colors, clams, scallops, hydroids, mussles, and lots and lots of Nudis. Its just so thick and dense down there. I love Macro diving the rigs.
Ken Liu (our third for this dive) was in a wetsuit. And as we only brought one battery for the scooters, I figured we'd take the scoots to get to depth but kick most of the dive. Ken was probably gonna get a little cold on this one. Look at the profile, and you can see how smooth Macro diving is... we were crawling our way back up, scouring and hunting for interesting stuff to shoot.
Dive Three
Ken didn't say a word, except to state "dive three was a bit cooler than dive two..." What a gamer!
The Sea Lions became impatient with us and our slow process up the rig, and instead of meeting us at 45 feet, many of them dived down to 65 feet to come and meet us.
Once again, I saw no blue Nudis on the rigs. There were none of the very common Nudis we have along the shore - Fed Ex, Mexichromis or McFarands. The most common Nudis on the rigs are Hermissenda, followed by Trilineata's and Stearnsi's. Saw some Sandys, saw some Dendy's, some Tata's and a Cuthona. White, white, white (and yellowish...) No Blue Nudis. Very strange.
Here are some Macro shots.
Enjoy.
---
Ken
Hermi on a huge gray sponge - Claudette called me over to see this sponge. This thing was the size of a mini-van, growing upright in a corner. I looked in, and smack in the middle of it was a teeny Hermi.
Mini Meddy - these guys are all over the place.
Dendy with some Trilinny's and some of those wacky teeny shelled insect things that are crawling all over the place... Its not uncommon to see two or three species of Nudi's in the same frame. We saw 5 species on one fist-sized bolt.
Slice O' Life - I dropped to my stomach and shot prone along one of the many cross braces, just to give you an idea of what things look like at beam-level. There are a few brittle stars on the Rigs.
A juicy TriLinny. The two principal varieties these guys come in are Red and yellow-ish. This was the only Red one I saw on Dive 3.
I love the clams and their wacky fringe. Here is a shot of one.
Here's the same guy from another angle
Hermi on the rust. They seem to like the rust, as whenever there is a cable or some other exposed steel that is rusting a bit, there is generally a hermissenda on it.
.
.
.
.
Huge thanks to Claudette and Ken for a great day and three excellent dives!
.
.
.
.
.
