Small creature ID help

[large_diver]

Was out diving with Cape Ann Divers on Sunday morning - Legendowski and Halfway Rock.

At Legendowski, there were tons of small, segmented creatures in the water near the surface. You can see them starting at 3:06 in the video below. Does anyone know what these are?

https://zurich-diver.smugmug.com/Legendowski-Halfway-Rock-Sept

Diving was very good. Vis was 15+, lots of life. The south side of Halfway had a large amount of anemones on it. Beautiful northern red anemone on Legendowski. Water temp at depth was in the mid-50s at depth.

Chris

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Salpa maxima.

 

[mmerriman]

yup - Salps. I was there too

 

[CT-Rich]

sure do clean up the water...

 

[Mr.X]

Cool video. I was also thinking there is a lot of white /green (droebachiensis) Sea Urchin down there. They're smaller - but yummmmm.

Salps - not so good to eat.

 

[drunkendiver]

Large,
That's some great Video. What kind of camera were you using?

 

[CT-Rich]

Cool video. I was also thinking there is a lot of white /green (droebachiensis) Sea Urchin down there. They're smaller - but yummmmm.

Salps - not so good to eat.

I don't know, if you crumple up some salps over a salad.....

 

[large_diver]

Large,
That's some great Video. What kind of camera were you using?

Thanks for the complement - I was really happy with the clarity of some of the footage. I am using a GoPro Hero 3+ along with the Backscatter flip system. The "flips" I used on this dive were the Backscatter green water filter for wide shots and the Backscatter macromate mini lens for the macro shots. Regarding lights = I just decided to upgrade to a 2-light set-up since I am taking my first trip to Indonesia (Lembeh/Raja Ampat) in the spring....and want to get some local practice in before winter gets here. I had been using a single light/single handle tray (Sea-Life Dragon 1200) set-up. The quality of the Sola lights that I bought is great.....much more even light beam. The tray/handles are from a company called Snake River Prototyping (bought this online at B&H photo). These were my first 2 dives with this new set-up.

That said, I definitely need more practice with this new set-up, particularly the placement/intensity settings of the light beams....the arms are much wider than my old 1-light set-up. I also need to work on keeping things steady on macro shots.....really hard with the GoPro on shots where you can't lean against the bottom.

Here are some shots of the set-up, as well as a pic my buddy took of me filming one of the lobsters.

Chris

 

[Mr.X]

I cannot believe how freakin' small and great these video systems are becoming. Great video Large!!!

 

[CT-Rich]

I cannot believe how freakin' small and great these video systems are becoming. Great video Large!!!

The downside to the Gopro type of action cameras is that they are so small and light it is difficult to keep them steady while shooting. I have mine a pole mount to keep it steady (braced against the forearm). Even then, I use the software in the editor to stabilize the image. But the quality keeps going up and the cost goes down.