Thanks to Bob and Lynne!!

[Missdirected]

Okay what exactly did this starfish do? :aeh:

 

[dsteding]

Okay what exactly did this starfish do? :aeh:

Probably what they usually do to people from out of town . . . it isn't pretty:11:

 

[do it easy]

BTW, Tony, I forgot to tell you (and this is TOTALLY true) that, when I took my marine life ID course, the instructor described those California sea stars as "vicious predators". They eat anything, including each other. See, you were so worried about the fish

Honestly, I'm so bad with fish, that I would consider both starfish and regular fish pretty similar, except for the fact that the starfish are man eaters.

So for my first dive in the Pacific Northwest, Lynne took me to Edmonds Underwater park. We geared up and did the usually surface hazing, I mean swimming, and then descended at the end of the jetty. As we meandered along Jetty Way, I was saw things that I had only seen in pictures and videos (Thanks Bob and Laura!). There was a large California starfish hanging out in the weeds, and it was slowly waving one of its arms. I thought that I should introduce myself to the wildlife, and out of curiosity, I stuck out my finger to make light contact. Then the wild beast latched onto the tip of my smurf glove and wouldn't let go. I pulled back lightly but it held its death grip. I tried shaking it slowly and the whole thing started to move since it was only sitting on weeds. I was near panic as I realized that it was less than 5 minutes into the dive and I had an 18" starfish attached to my finger. If I didn't get it off my finger, Lynne was certainly going to notice. I yanked a little harder and it finally let go, although there were some small suckers still stuck on my blue gloves. I quickly knocked them off, just in case they were poisonous.

For the rest of the dive, I only touched dead crabs that were upside down in the water. I flipped them over to try to trick the cabezons that they were still alive. I did see a few moon snails, they are quick little buggers, but they weren't trying to write messages to me in the sand like the freshwater snails do. Lynne pointed out all the giant fish to me so that I wouldn't be tempted by the predatory starfish. I can only imagine the dangers of the pleurosis anemones- anything that looks like cauliflower must be lethal.