Date: 6-18-2011 Dive Site: High Rocks, Clackamas River Dive Number: 2-2011
Entrance Time: 11:02 AM Exit Time: 11:54 AM Bottom Time: 52 minutes
PSI Used: Started with 1400 psig, ended with 300 psig, total: 1100 psig
Depth: Max depth was about 25 feet, but most of the dive was spent at about 10 feet
Participating Divers: Solo
Dive Plan:
This dive was planned as the first of the season at High Rocks. I’ve been diving this site for years, but usually start on Memorial Day. This year’s extremely high water and snow melt kept me from even thinking about it until today. But the weather was rainy today, and upon looking at the water I almost decided not to dive. Then the Fire Department showed up with their divers, and I decided that if they could get wet, so could I.
Water Conditions (Temperature, Visibility, etc.)
The water was cold, and normally I ask the lifeguards about the temperature. But today the lifeguards were not there yet, so I estimate the temperature in the low 40s. Visibility was about 4 feet, and the lighting was not good because of the heavy cloud cover with rain. Current was strong, but the river was not as high as I expected. It was maybe three feet higher than normal, which meant it was dive-able.
Observations:
...Normally, at this site, I go to the bottom here and make my way downstream and across the current to an eddy just up from the High Rocks narrows channel. But today, because of the current, I stayed on the surface until I was past the fire department personnel, I still wanted to get into the eddy, but needed to do that underwater at this point because the surface current was very strong. I went to the bottom, and was swimming upstream toward the shallower areas of the eddie. The bottom here is rocky with gravel on the bottom. As I started up, I noticed a brown Pacific lamprey. It was going my direction, so I decided to stop for a moment and watch it. The lamprey (Lampetra tridentate) was brown rather than grey, indicating to me that it had not been in the river too long.
I swam up the gravel bank from about 15 feet depth to about 10 feet depth, nearing the bottom portion of this eddy but where there was still a downstream current. There I saw two more lampreys, which were joined by this third one, on the bottom holding onto stones in their mouths. Then they curled around each other, and began mating. I reached up to my mask and brought the SeawiscopeEY down in position on my mask. This is a double-lens device that allows very close focusing and observations. With it down, and the two lampreys in a mating position (one male attached itself to the female’s head, and circled her body with his), I watched in amazement as they convulsed in a mating orgasm, and eggs and sperm came out. After a moment, the male released his grip on her head, and the three lampreys began moving stones over the site. At first. It was small stones being moved out, then large stones were moved on top. They kept moving the stones in the river, and the large ones were bigger than my fist. One lamprey would cling to the stone with his/her mouth, then with body undulations try to displace it from the bottom. The larger stones were moved over the area of the eggs, which were sticking to the rocks on the bottom. Some had drifted back in the current too.
This process was repeated at least five times while I watched during the next 20 minutes. The male would grab the head of the female, wrap his body around the female and they would release sperm and eggs in what could only be described as a body convulsion, a fast-frequency twitching of the whole lower bodies of the two fish. This would be followed by several minutes of moving stones on the bottom. This was a cooperative effort by three lampreys. At one point, the dominant male tried mating with the female, and because the other male was along-side could only wrap his body around the both of them. That did not work, so he would change his body position slightly and try again. Finally, and only after he had successfully wrapped his body only around her, the mating commenced again.
This mating activity of the lampreys was fascinating to watch. Toward the end of my observations, the other male tried to mate with this female, and a fight ensued. The dominant male attached to the other male with his mouth, and swam him away. He returned, and the fight ensued again. Eventually, only the female and the dominant male were there.
By this time, I was getting cold, so I reluctantly pushed off into the downstream current, when across the High Rocks narrows, and surfaced to see whether the fire department was there. I could not see them, nor the lifeguards, so I submerged again and continued downstream. By this time I had only about 600 psig (500 psig reserve still in one cylinder’s J-valve). As I came downsteam, I found myself climbing over boulders, so I briefly surfaced again to gain my bearings, then submerged and got into the main stream.
As I came under the footbridge, and into the more lighted area, I drifted into a face-to-face with a fish I had never seen underwater before, a sturgeon. This is the fabled Columbia River White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus Richardson), and it was the biggest fish by far that I have seen in the Clackamas River. My reaction was a hooted expletive through the Healthways Hope-Page mouthpiece. I saw it only for a half a second, and then it turned tail and in one motion was gone. Its head was a full foot across in front of me, and I estimate its length at about six feet.
After my breathing got back down to normal, I continued downstream. I had found a golf ball at High Rocks, but now was downstream and had found a fishing lure. I put it into my BC front pocket, but noted that I had lost the golf all. Oh well, not a big loss. A minute later I drifted by a rock which contained a salmon about 18 inches long, and it couldn’t see me as the right side of its face was damaged by something. It had a long, white laceration where its eye should have been. I decided to try to grab it, by didn’t even get my hard around its tail before it was gone. It was a nice, bright fish, and it is probably good that I did not catch it.
Special Problems and their Proposed Solutions:
8. Oh, how I wished I had carried my camera! But it was the first dive, in dark waters with a high current. My camera is so bulky that it would have been difficult to bring, but I could have gotten some really unique photos of lampreys mating. I probably would not have gotten anything of the sturgeon thought, due to the startle factor.
