OK - so the massive run of Market Squid that we've been waiting fot isn't here.
Whatever - been there, seen them, photographed that.
Last night was a first for me - in, I dunno, 1400 or 1500 dives, hundreds of those at Vets - I saw a Stubby Squid.
At Vets.
Unreal.
As Chica and I do, the moment the weather lets us back in the water, we RUN to go dive. Last night we tried MarineLand, but the wind was fierce. We could have got in, as the surf seemed manageable - but with a good 2+ hours from the first look-see to the time we'd be getting out of the water, I wasn't sure if:
I decided to do the smart and cautious thing, so we made our way to Vet Spark. No wind. Ankle slapper entry - we walked in. Of course, we were the only divers there (what is the deal with SoCal divers?) on a beautiful, cloudless night.
The plan was to go looking for squid. They should be here any time now, if they're coming this year. We walked in, got settled, mashed the triggers to about 120+ feet. On the way down we put our can lights on our chest to create a black out, as the BioLume was insane - like shooting stars as we motored to 120 FSW.
We got there and looked about the place. Nothing. No squid, no carpet of eggs, no nothing. Just excellent, clear, beautiful diving in an empty sea. On the way down, we put out can lights into our Oh, and a baby Sarcastic Fringehead in a cast off PVC coupling at about 118 feet!
We were on 32, so we didn't want to linger that deep - just peek around. We moved to about 100-ish and head north up the coastline looking for fun stuff. A few moments later I see a Red Octo - Vets is loaded with them.
This one looks different - his arms are, well, stubby. I'm thinking there is no way this is what I think it is. A Stubby Squid. At Vets?? I light signal Claudette over, and she starts for the little guy. I get her attention again, and make our "Octo" sign, followed by the wagging finger (which to us means, "no, no no") - of course she instantly got it and was riveted on the little feller.
They are so different than Octos. These guys have an out-sized head - like a little Red Octo, but with translucent mantel flaps. They have the face of a squid, but they have tiny little T-Rex arms. The head of an Octo kinda sits on top of this umbrella of arms. Squid have their arms coming out of their face. They're completely different animals. This wacky thing was like a little bit of both. Who made this thing??
They also bury themselves in the sand. WHO KNEW?? Our little guy moved very slowly, and arm-by-little-arm kinda buried his bad self into the sand up to his eyeballs and siphon.
Claudette and I are watching this (we spent about 7 minute with the guy at 100 feet) and she looks over and points to him, points to herself, holds up an index finger, then points the finger at the sand. The sign? My first one HERE (she's seen them in Seattle.) I point at the guy, point the index finger at myself, then in the air and make a huge smile - my first one ever!
We were giddy. Vet Spark - you never know what this place is gonna cough up. I have got to bring the camera on every dive here. The place constantly surprises me.
By the time we were done with the stubby love fest, I moved us up to the 80 foot range - we'd been down at or below 100 for about 23 minutes and it was time to go play at some more modest depths if we were gonna get in an hour dive.
We're zooming north looking around and we see the usual suspects - more Octos (real Octos, not face-armed stubby squidlys) sarcastic fringheads in wavy turban shells, fish all over the place, the largest pipefish EVER. Claudette tells me its a bay pipefish - I'm thinking its some other kind of pipefish. This thing was 5 times the circumference of any pipefish I've ever seen at Vets and easily three times as long. The thing was huge. It was hanging out on some blown in kelp.
Lets talk about the storm effects on my mudhole.
Weird stuff. There is salad - broken up kelp, all over the place at about 90 - 120 feet. Its just covered with it. There's supposed to be sand down there. We also saw a very large clump of Sea Grass - you know, the stuff that grows in 8 feet of water... The sand was littered with hold-fasts and chunks of kelp. The topography of the place is unrecognizable - as all of the regular features - the whoop-de-doos (egg crate type undulations in the sand) are gone. The trash line at 55 feet on the ledge is gone. The north slope is gone. The whole place has a fresh, thick dusting of very fine sand - which explains why the exit point is now mostly gravel and not sand - all of the sand got washed down the canyon and is covering all the stuff we usually look at.
Unless you shore dive, and shore dive the same spots often, its hard to imagine the power and the unparalleled volume of sand that is moved week to week by the ocean. I mean, we've all read about it, and we've all heard about it on Discover Channel and in those, what are they, uh, books and stuff. But to come in here and see it week over week - it would take hundreds of trucks thousands of hours to move millions of tons of sand up and down the canyon. Its really quite something.
As we're blasting along the 80 line we come across this smallish Pluerobranchaea Nudi laying eggs. He's all wrapped around some stalk of something, his lung extended out his side and just laying an egg mass. I've seen lots of Pleuros - I seen lots of their egg masses - I've just never seen one in the middle of laying one out. Way cool!
We move up to about the 65 foot line and turn the dive at about 46 minutes. We're heading back south - there should be, at the 65 foot mark, all kinds of mussel clumps, rocky detritus, and a whole line of growth and stuff. There is nothing but sand.
Then we roll up onto the only Squid egg basket we've seen in weeks. This one is of modest size, and there is actually a solitary squid arriving as we're there to contribute a candle to the mass.
We get some shots of the guy - clearly his alarm has gone off at a strange time, as he's not in synch with his 3 or 4 million closest friends. But we're happy to see him and we took lots of shots and hung out together for about 5 minutes.
I have about 500 PSI at this time, so we spend the next 4 minutes motoring slowly up to about 20 feet. We hang out for a bit - marveling that the sand dollars and olive snails we usually see are either gone or under a blanket of sand. We do a slow ascent, clip off the fins, motor through the surf and walk out without breaking stride.
A perfect entry - a perfect exit, and in-between 67 minutes of excellent diving. All by ourselves.
It was wonderful.
Thanks again, Claudette. You are flexible, fun, fit, ferocious and fabulous.
Some pics below.
---
Ken
Juvi Sarky in the PVC Coupling - you can still see the blue cement on the coupling, under all the growth.
Pleuro Laying eggs - I was pretty excited about seeing this guy. He's pretty big, and I was shooting the 105 lens, so I was pretty far away, but you get the idea.
Market Squid Zombie - this guy had already set down his egg case when Dette and I found him hovering over the basket. He's puffing around the basket, kicking up sand and yuck. In the shot you can see his now-rotting arms and skin are falling off and he's about to become a meal for the Bat Rays or the Scorpion Fish or the Sand Bass.
STUBBY SQUID TIME!!!!!!!
Here are some shots of the little guy (about the size of a quarter. Maybe.) burying himself in the sand.
ONE - find the stubby sitting on the sand. He has his tippy-toes in the sand
TWO - not impressed with me, he digs into the sand up to his elbows (squid have elbows? Knees?) Check the mantel on the side of his Red-Octo looking dome.
THREE - He's going under and hiding out! Buried up to his forehead (squid have... ahh, forget about it)
FOUR - Can't see me!!! Claudette and I were talking in the parking lot. Who knew they buried themselves? How many have we passed over in the hundreds of dives at Vet Spark?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Whatever - been there, seen them, photographed that.
Last night was a first for me - in, I dunno, 1400 or 1500 dives, hundreds of those at Vets - I saw a Stubby Squid.
At Vets.
Unreal.
As Chica and I do, the moment the weather lets us back in the water, we RUN to go dive. Last night we tried MarineLand, but the wind was fierce. We could have got in, as the surf seemed manageable - but with a good 2+ hours from the first look-see to the time we'd be getting out of the water, I wasn't sure if:
a) The wind had just started - as there was NO WIND just a block or two away
b) The wind was going to go away while we were on our dive and we'd come up 2+ hours later to dead calm
c) The wind would get worse - and we'd go in with knee-to-waist high rollers over the rocks and maybe come out 2+ hours from now, with numb feet to waist-to-shoulder high pounders on the rocks.
b) The wind was going to go away while we were on our dive and we'd come up 2+ hours later to dead calm
c) The wind would get worse - and we'd go in with knee-to-waist high rollers over the rocks and maybe come out 2+ hours from now, with numb feet to waist-to-shoulder high pounders on the rocks.
I decided to do the smart and cautious thing, so we made our way to Vet Spark. No wind. Ankle slapper entry - we walked in. Of course, we were the only divers there (what is the deal with SoCal divers?) on a beautiful, cloudless night.
The plan was to go looking for squid. They should be here any time now, if they're coming this year. We walked in, got settled, mashed the triggers to about 120+ feet. On the way down we put our can lights on our chest to create a black out, as the BioLume was insane - like shooting stars as we motored to 120 FSW.
We got there and looked about the place. Nothing. No squid, no carpet of eggs, no nothing. Just excellent, clear, beautiful diving in an empty sea. On the way down, we put out can lights into our Oh, and a baby Sarcastic Fringehead in a cast off PVC coupling at about 118 feet!
We were on 32, so we didn't want to linger that deep - just peek around. We moved to about 100-ish and head north up the coastline looking for fun stuff. A few moments later I see a Red Octo - Vets is loaded with them.
This one looks different - his arms are, well, stubby. I'm thinking there is no way this is what I think it is. A Stubby Squid. At Vets?? I light signal Claudette over, and she starts for the little guy. I get her attention again, and make our "Octo" sign, followed by the wagging finger (which to us means, "no, no no") - of course she instantly got it and was riveted on the little feller.
They are so different than Octos. These guys have an out-sized head - like a little Red Octo, but with translucent mantel flaps. They have the face of a squid, but they have tiny little T-Rex arms. The head of an Octo kinda sits on top of this umbrella of arms. Squid have their arms coming out of their face. They're completely different animals. This wacky thing was like a little bit of both. Who made this thing??
They also bury themselves in the sand. WHO KNEW?? Our little guy moved very slowly, and arm-by-little-arm kinda buried his bad self into the sand up to his eyeballs and siphon.
Claudette and I are watching this (we spent about 7 minute with the guy at 100 feet) and she looks over and points to him, points to herself, holds up an index finger, then points the finger at the sand. The sign? My first one HERE (she's seen them in Seattle.) I point at the guy, point the index finger at myself, then in the air and make a huge smile - my first one ever!
We were giddy. Vet Spark - you never know what this place is gonna cough up. I have got to bring the camera on every dive here. The place constantly surprises me.
By the time we were done with the stubby love fest, I moved us up to the 80 foot range - we'd been down at or below 100 for about 23 minutes and it was time to go play at some more modest depths if we were gonna get in an hour dive.
We're zooming north looking around and we see the usual suspects - more Octos (real Octos, not face-armed stubby squidlys) sarcastic fringheads in wavy turban shells, fish all over the place, the largest pipefish EVER. Claudette tells me its a bay pipefish - I'm thinking its some other kind of pipefish. This thing was 5 times the circumference of any pipefish I've ever seen at Vets and easily three times as long. The thing was huge. It was hanging out on some blown in kelp.
Lets talk about the storm effects on my mudhole.
Weird stuff. There is salad - broken up kelp, all over the place at about 90 - 120 feet. Its just covered with it. There's supposed to be sand down there. We also saw a very large clump of Sea Grass - you know, the stuff that grows in 8 feet of water... The sand was littered with hold-fasts and chunks of kelp. The topography of the place is unrecognizable - as all of the regular features - the whoop-de-doos (egg crate type undulations in the sand) are gone. The trash line at 55 feet on the ledge is gone. The north slope is gone. The whole place has a fresh, thick dusting of very fine sand - which explains why the exit point is now mostly gravel and not sand - all of the sand got washed down the canyon and is covering all the stuff we usually look at.
Unless you shore dive, and shore dive the same spots often, its hard to imagine the power and the unparalleled volume of sand that is moved week to week by the ocean. I mean, we've all read about it, and we've all heard about it on Discover Channel and in those, what are they, uh, books and stuff. But to come in here and see it week over week - it would take hundreds of trucks thousands of hours to move millions of tons of sand up and down the canyon. Its really quite something.
As we're blasting along the 80 line we come across this smallish Pluerobranchaea Nudi laying eggs. He's all wrapped around some stalk of something, his lung extended out his side and just laying an egg mass. I've seen lots of Pleuros - I seen lots of their egg masses - I've just never seen one in the middle of laying one out. Way cool!
We move up to about the 65 foot line and turn the dive at about 46 minutes. We're heading back south - there should be, at the 65 foot mark, all kinds of mussel clumps, rocky detritus, and a whole line of growth and stuff. There is nothing but sand.
Then we roll up onto the only Squid egg basket we've seen in weeks. This one is of modest size, and there is actually a solitary squid arriving as we're there to contribute a candle to the mass.
We get some shots of the guy - clearly his alarm has gone off at a strange time, as he's not in synch with his 3 or 4 million closest friends. But we're happy to see him and we took lots of shots and hung out together for about 5 minutes.
I have about 500 PSI at this time, so we spend the next 4 minutes motoring slowly up to about 20 feet. We hang out for a bit - marveling that the sand dollars and olive snails we usually see are either gone or under a blanket of sand. We do a slow ascent, clip off the fins, motor through the surf and walk out without breaking stride.
A perfect entry - a perfect exit, and in-between 67 minutes of excellent diving. All by ourselves.
It was wonderful.
Thanks again, Claudette. You are flexible, fun, fit, ferocious and fabulous.
Some pics below.
---
Ken
Juvi Sarky in the PVC Coupling - you can still see the blue cement on the coupling, under all the growth.
Pleuro Laying eggs - I was pretty excited about seeing this guy. He's pretty big, and I was shooting the 105 lens, so I was pretty far away, but you get the idea.
Market Squid Zombie - this guy had already set down his egg case when Dette and I found him hovering over the basket. He's puffing around the basket, kicking up sand and yuck. In the shot you can see his now-rotting arms and skin are falling off and he's about to become a meal for the Bat Rays or the Scorpion Fish or the Sand Bass.
STUBBY SQUID TIME!!!!!!!
Here are some shots of the little guy (about the size of a quarter. Maybe.) burying himself in the sand.
ONE - find the stubby sitting on the sand. He has his tippy-toes in the sand
TWO - not impressed with me, he digs into the sand up to his elbows (squid have elbows? Knees?) Check the mantel on the side of his Red-Octo looking dome.
THREE - He's going under and hiding out! Buried up to his forehead (squid have... ahh, forget about it)
FOUR - Can't see me!!! Claudette and I were talking in the parking lot. Who knew they buried themselves? How many have we passed over in the hundreds of dives at Vet Spark?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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