Today, I turned out for the shop dive from one of our LDS's. I went because my favorite dive buddy was going, and he had invited me to dive with him and his son. We haven't dived together in several weeks, because I was out of town and then working, and then he was off skiing. I really wanted to get a chance to dive together.
The dive was held at a local site which we all know, probably too well. It's a training site, silty and often not terribly rewarding in terms of sea life. But it's not current sensitive and can be dived at all tides, so it's a pretty common place for us to dive. I'll bet I've done a third of my total dives there.
We got there early, too early for a Sunday morning. But a good group turned out, and we split into teams and hit the water. Kirk and Nick and I had a lovely hour of floating around and inspecting every tire, bottle and piling for critters. Our haul included the largest lemon peel nudibranch I've ever seen (probably 8 inches long!), a little pasture of alabaster nudibranchs, a leopard dorid, and a round white nudibranch with brilliant white spots (I've seen the species before -- it's a dorid, I think, but I'm not sure which one.) Kirk found a Red Irish Lord on a piling, where he usually finds warbonnets. I found a lovely little flabellina nudibranch in the kelp in the shallows. We finished about an hour's dive, and went for breakfast with a whole group of divers.
Predictably, the conversation revolved around diving . . . Where we HAD dived; where we HOPED to dive; people we wanted to dive WITH; classes we hoped to take or had taken. Talk swirled and looped among the divers and the non-divers, and some very good food disappeared in the meantime.
About one o'clock, Kirk and I returned to Cove 2, with the intention of doing a second dive. The sun had come out, and the day was stunning. The air had warmed, and it was definitely spring. The mood of the day affected the LDS shop owner, who decided to join the two of us for our fun dive. As I had been whining at breakfast about wanting accomplished divers to model, I was deeply pleased at this.
The three of us made a plan, dropped, and toured the cove where we had all been many times before. We saw what we usually see, and it was fun; but on the way back up, in the relative shallows, we found something very odd. It looked like a big worm or a small eel. It was wriggly and grey, with a pale belly and an odd head with no discernible eyes. It wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere, so all of us got to inspect it closely, but no one had any idea what it was.
It turns out it was a Pacific hagfish. Not rare, but perhaps seasonal, and none of the three of us (one of whom has YEARS of diving in this site) had seen it before.
Weightlessness, companionship, mentoring, learning, and discovering something completely new. We ran through a lot of the reasons for diving today, and enjoyed every minute of it.
The dive was held at a local site which we all know, probably too well. It's a training site, silty and often not terribly rewarding in terms of sea life. But it's not current sensitive and can be dived at all tides, so it's a pretty common place for us to dive. I'll bet I've done a third of my total dives there.
We got there early, too early for a Sunday morning. But a good group turned out, and we split into teams and hit the water. Kirk and Nick and I had a lovely hour of floating around and inspecting every tire, bottle and piling for critters. Our haul included the largest lemon peel nudibranch I've ever seen (probably 8 inches long!), a little pasture of alabaster nudibranchs, a leopard dorid, and a round white nudibranch with brilliant white spots (I've seen the species before -- it's a dorid, I think, but I'm not sure which one.) Kirk found a Red Irish Lord on a piling, where he usually finds warbonnets. I found a lovely little flabellina nudibranch in the kelp in the shallows. We finished about an hour's dive, and went for breakfast with a whole group of divers.
Predictably, the conversation revolved around diving . . . Where we HAD dived; where we HOPED to dive; people we wanted to dive WITH; classes we hoped to take or had taken. Talk swirled and looped among the divers and the non-divers, and some very good food disappeared in the meantime.
About one o'clock, Kirk and I returned to Cove 2, with the intention of doing a second dive. The sun had come out, and the day was stunning. The air had warmed, and it was definitely spring. The mood of the day affected the LDS shop owner, who decided to join the two of us for our fun dive. As I had been whining at breakfast about wanting accomplished divers to model, I was deeply pleased at this.
The three of us made a plan, dropped, and toured the cove where we had all been many times before. We saw what we usually see, and it was fun; but on the way back up, in the relative shallows, we found something very odd. It looked like a big worm or a small eel. It was wriggly and grey, with a pale belly and an odd head with no discernible eyes. It wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere, so all of us got to inspect it closely, but no one had any idea what it was.
It turns out it was a Pacific hagfish. Not rare, but perhaps seasonal, and none of the three of us (one of whom has YEARS of diving in this site) had seen it before.
Weightlessness, companionship, mentoring, learning, and discovering something completely new. We ran through a lot of the reasons for diving today, and enjoyed every minute of it.
Thanks for reminding me about cove 2- I'm glad that I had a chance to dive it and see what it's all about. Next time, I'll try it during the day! 
