Video: Three Great Dives (1/8/11)

[stargost]

A video reflector mounted on a Goodman handle is an easy (and relatively cheap) way of adding a good amount of light. You do, however, have to worry about blowing out the sensor. I know Blackwood tried it with his P&S, with mixed results. I seem to have better luck, but my camera is mounted on the scooter, so further away.

moderate cheap (120$ at addhelium), but i think convenient !
I'll have soon an opportunity to test this with the scooter too

As for the "memory" issue,

excuse my french, I meant - stuff to remember from the dive, not the fact that you led the team in an outstanding way (which was also true )

I think you mentioned you're looking to get a scooter. It only gets harder when you're moving faster/further.

I'm not looking anymore. It's coming next week. I know it'd be a little hard, hope good tech1 divers will still be ok to dive with me and monitor the anchor ...

 

[drbill]

Interesting to see the blacksmith go after the squid eggs. Several years ago off Hen Rock I saw a very large school of blacksmith nipping at a dense carpet of squid eggs, mostly old ones. "Common wisdom" used to be that not much ate the eggs, but predators went after the dying and dead squid. I was surprised to see clusters of eggs and dead squid lying on the bottom right off the Pleasure Pier floats in Avalon yesterday. Several of us had never seen squid laying eggs inside the harbor over a period of decades.

The number of barred sand bass in your video also attracted my attention.

 

[jenth]

Finally edited video for the first dive. There are some nice sequences where it looks like Nicole's enjoying her scooter!

[vimeo]18772372[/vimeo]

Interesting to see the blacksmith go after the squid eggs. Several years ago off Hen Rock I saw a very large school of blacksmith nipping at a dense carpet of squid eggs, mostly old ones. "Common wisdom" used to be that not much ate the eggs, but predators went after the dying and dead squid. I was surprised to see clusters of eggs and dead squid lying on the bottom right off the Pleasure Pier floats in Avalon yesterday. Several of us had never seen squid laying eggs inside the harbor over a period of decades.

The number of barred sand bass in your video also attracted my attention.

Lately on all the wrecks, I've been seeing schools of blacksmiths nibbling on both squid eggs and dead squid. And I have been seeing a lot of large barred sand bass too (RubyE and Star of Scotland wrecks). The ones on the Star of Scotland were huge! I kept mistaking them for lings.

 

[Rainer]

I'm not looking anymore. It's coming next week. I know it'd be a little hard, hope good tech1 divers will still be ok to dive with me and monitor the anchor ...

Lol, I think *everyone* is supposed to monitor the anchor.

Interesting to see the blacksmith go after the squid eggs. Several years ago off Hen Rock I saw a very large school of blacksmith nipping at a dense carpet of squid eggs, mostly old ones. "Common wisdom" used to be that not much ate the eggs, but predators went after the dying and dead squid. I was surprised to see clusters of eggs and dead squid lying on the bottom right off the Pleasure Pier floats in Avalon yesterday. Several of us had never seen squid laying eggs inside the harbor over a period of decades.

The number of barred sand bass in your video also attracted my attention.

It's funny as I'd just read here on SB last week that nothing eats squid eggs, then I witness exactly that on Saturday.

Pretty cool you saw some eggs over on the island!

As Jen mentioned, lots of really big barred sand bass on this wreck (and the Ruby E).

Finally edited video for the first dive. There are some nice sequences where it looks like Nicole's enjoying her scooter!

What an amazing first video you shot and edited! You're a natural.

Love Nicole's loops. Seriously, though, what's with that fish at 2:40? He looks like he's stretching!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Seriously, though, what's with that fish at 2:40? He looks like he's stretching!

Egg laying.

 

[Rainer]

Looks painful.

 

[jenth]

Egg laying.

Wow, I had no idea...thanks for that bit of knowledge! BTW, we also saw a bunch of juvenile blue rockfish on the Olympic. At first, I just thought they were schools of blacksmith...but then, it dawned on me (after your previous post about them)!