Vet Spark is back - Finally! Great Dive 4-1... No Foolin'

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Mo2vation

Relocated to South Florida....
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The local diving has been really poor lately. In fact, for most of March, its really been poor diving conditions.

With the wind finally abating and the surf forecasts looking favorable, Ken Liu, Chica and I got out on Tuesday to sneak in a dive before the weather moved in again.

We were not disappointed!

THE DIVE


Things didn't start well - as I showed up at the dive site with 2 scooters but left the batteries on the charger, along with my Can light batt. Enter 'Chica - Local Gurl! She rolled home, grabbed her second scoot batt and her back-up HID.

So we now have two scoots for the three of us, and we're all lighted up. This is getting better.

We continue to gear up, Chica realizes she has no weight belt. No worries, as I dive heavy. So I peel off one of my two 4# blocks, give it to her and then take the 4 ballast weights from the scoot we're not using and split them between us as pocket weights.

Finally ready, we do the first Seattle entry we've seen in weeks and drop into cool, cloudy water.

We scoot down the canyon, and at about 30 feet we get BLASTED with very cold water. No foreplay... just from 58 to about 51 in 2 feet. Talk about brain freeze! But with this cold water came clarity. We were stunned to see that the water was clearer than it has been in weeks.

We motored down to 104 feet (where it's now 50 degrees... how you liking that Drysuit now, KenL???!!!) and found a Giant Black Sea Bass baby about the size if a small dinner plate. A look around at depth and we see a HUGE Dorina picta nudi. Got some shots and we kicked slowly up the canyon, just trippin' on the viz.

I see a Pipe Bayfish (thanks Narc'd Chica) at about 80, hanging out in some kelp. I've always wanted to try to get a whole pipefish in a shot. Very tough as when they see me and the deathstar rolling up they get vertical and try to blend. This guy actually came TOWARDS me - so I was able to get him all in the shot. I moved the focus point to land right on his face, and the result was the rest of his body (deep in the frame) and the rest of the shot being slightly out of focus, getting more out of focus as you move back from the in-focus face. The background of gray sand is so out of the focus field it reminds me of a back drop used in portrait studios.

A huge octopus is also hanging out at about 80. KenL is diving air, so we move up to 50 and the plan is to work the canyon wall for Nudis and stuff.

We seeing some smaller nudis and the usual suspects - small octos, sarcastic fringeheads, shrimp, all manner of crabs and stuff. We're also seeing clusters of very large Nudi eggs.

Eggs this large usually mean Dendronotus iris - a very large Nudi that eats tube anemones. We don't have many tubers at Vets, so D. iris are not common. But the eggs we saw look like theirs, so we're on the look out.

Chica points out a Pleurobranchaea Nudi - one of the larger Nudis here. Not rare, but not real common, so I kick away slowly to make a large U-turn so I could get a nice up-canyon shot. When I came about, I look at what Claudette is pointing at, and its NOT the same Nudi.

Pleuro's are very distinctive, roundish, brown mottled Nudis. This wacky thing she's pointing at is large, pink, and something I've never seen before.

With my back turned, my buddy pulled the Nudi Bait-and-Switch.

This fatty is new to us. I get some shots of it and we move on.

About 5 minutes later, I see another huge bunch of the same eggs. I scan around for a few moments and I see ANOTHER pink fatty, much larger than the first one.

Claudette and I dive Vets a couple of times a week. We have hundreds of dives at Vets, and we're seeing something neither of us have ever seen before (here or anywhere else.) And we've seen two of them in about 6 minutes.

I get more shots of this second pink fatty, kick along and come up on a new Horn Shark. This little guy was so sweet and let me take about 9 shots of him. What a cutie.

I check the gauge, its about an hour and we point East and head to shore.

The viz goes to nothing at about 20 feet, we tighten up the formation, get to about 9 feet, do a slow ascent and walk out of a flat sea.

KenL is so sweet and 'dette and I geek out about those two new Nudis from the moment we popped up through the stair climb to the walk to the cars and the break down. We were splashing our geekdom all over the poor guy.

Once home, I busted out the third edition and learned Pinky was none other than Tritonia diomedea. The book said they eat Sea Pens - which makes sense, as the two we saw were in very close proximity to the fleshy pink sea pens that grow at Vets.

Many thanks to Ken Liu and Claudette for an excellent dive. KenL - you arranged this and pushed us to get in on Tuesday night, and I am so glad you did.

Some pictures below. Enjoy.


---
Ken


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Muh muh muh My Dirona!




Full PipeFish in a shot.




Baby Horn Shark, posing for the camera




These are the eggs we saw that tipped us off that something big and different was in the area.




Tritonia diomedea. They're at Vets now. 50 foot line. Find the eggs, and look around. They're big, they're pink and they're tough to miss!




Face to face with Pinky


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Ken,
When Marineland re-opens have Claudette lead the way to the pinnacles. If it's anything like before, she'll lead you to the sandy plains in 70 feet. :)
Don't get discouraged. Pinky eats sea pens, and they can be found out there. The deeper you go, the taller the sea pens and the more numerous Pinky becomes.
 
Ken,
When Marineland re-opens have Claudette lead the way to the pinnacles. If it's anything like before, she'll lead you to the sandy plains in 70 feet. :)
Don't get discouraged. Pinky eats sea pens, and they can be found out there. The deeper you go, the taller the sea pens and the more numerous Pinky becomes.

You know the sandy area south of the south steps? South of the salad bowl? Sea Pen city, and that's right where we found them.

We're going back tonight with the 60mm so I can get some tighter shots.

We'll be at Marineland as soon as we can, that's for sure!


---
Ken
 

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