Where did I go with my force fins?

[Soakedlontra]

Force Fins into the wonderful wonders of Whytecliff Park.

Part Three: Don’t Mess With Me Baby!​

Sunday switched into Monday in a flash. A sad realization that soon we would have to hit the road like other hundreds of American holiday-makers and cross the Canada-US border again to go back to our usual daily life slowly sunk in. However we didn’t let the ticking of time dominate our last day in British Columbia.

We treated ourselves with a healthy and tasty breakfast in an affordable, funky and cozy home-made-atmosphere vegetarian restaurant called Naam on 4th Avenue (one of the few that serves organic eggs), drove back to a nearby dive shop (International Diving Center) to drop the rented tanks and have ours re-filled and finally went back to Whytecliff Park to do our last dive of Labor Day Weekend.

Finally the weather began to mellow out. The thick blanket of clouds thinned out revealing patches of welcoming blue sky. The sea was much calmer than the previous day, a light breeze was hitting the shore not a moody wind. The conditions were nearly perfect (the tide was low, though) for diving at a different dive site that was around the corner from the beach. We parked the car in an area of the parking lot that was closer to the trail that would take us to a narrow cove called The Cut.

We had to hike down to a short mountain trail, several wooden stairs

and walk over big logs and rocks that were exposed by the low tide

to reach the water at The Cut.

When I told my buddy that I didn’t want to give up finding the Betty PJ’s plumose anemones wall and I was determined to give it a third try my buddy rolled his eyes sighing and remarked in exasperation that we had already seen that wall! I totally disagreed with him. To complicate things further one of the International Diving Center shop assistants told us about the underwater geological features of The Cut: a mix of walls interspaced by ledges covered with sand. It did sound really fascinating. The desire to dive in that area of The Cut to see those features with my own eyes conflicted with my stubbornness of finding the plumose anemones wall!

After discussing what to do from different angles my buddy and I reached the agreement to surface swim to the Day Marker (from there it was a shorter swim) and drop next to it, look for those anemones and then swam back towards shore to look for those walls and ledges. I guess I wanted to have the cake and eat it too! (I sometimes wonder how my buddy can find the mental stamina to put up with me&#8230. We would limit our max. depth to 70 FSW and surface at the wall or ledges near the Day Marker to maximize our bottom time.

Guess what happened when we descended down next to the Day Marker? We missed the plumose anemones for the third time! We encountered some but they were not as dense as the ones in the picture at page # 46 of Betty PJ’s book. However we did manage to screw up our plan by diving to a depth of 77FSW because we spotted other cloud sponges! We actually saw the biggest cloud sponge of the lot but it was hanging from the wall further deeper then 77FSW so we did not swim down to get closer (one mistake was enough).

This deal made me realize again that firstly it is becoming more awkward for me to keep track of depth and buoyancy while keeping the depth gauge in a console rather than on a wrist and secondly we cannot keep diving with one computer only any longer (a ‘practice’ a lot of divers find unsafe). I need to have my own to become a more self sufficient diver instead of relying on my buddy to check no decompression limits!

When we began to swim back and ascend slowly over a steep and high wall that apparently looked more ‘naked’ than any other walls that we had seen earlier, we spotted an anemone and a crab hiding underneath it. That anemone was the only possible shelter around (the wall was smooth without any cracks and crevices) and the crab took advantage of it. That pair looked odd but quite cute and immediately I thought about Nemo. Hold a minute! A crab is not a clown fish! I then began to wonder whether that crustacean was aware that its hiding place was a living organism with tentacles full of stinging cells that it could have used to get hold of the crab and eat it if it had the chance or not. How could I have warned that crab of the danger that was dangling above its bright red carapace?

Snakelock Anemone and a Red Rock Crab

I did not have time to hang around long enough to find out whether the Red Rock Crab became the anemone’s next meal or not . The only thing I could do was to wish the shelled animal good luck. We moved on and saw ledges covered with Tube Dwelling Anemones and big Orange Sea Pens. Sea stars of all shapes and color were crawling everywhere creating pileups that reminded me of cars after huge crashes in highways at rush hour. It was truly a magical and amazing place that burst with life and color.

Then, I don’t remember who spotted it first, as a grand finale that ended our last dive at Whytecliff Park we spent some time at the door step of a Giant Pacific Octopus’ den scrutinizing its white suckers and every visible folds of its pink- orange skin once more. The animal was so tucked inside at the far back of its home that we could not see as much of the animal as we did on our first dive on Saturday.

My buddy believed it was the same octopus and I thought it was a different one because somehow the hole in the rock did not look the same. The diver whom we met the day before, Mike, did tell us that there were two GOPs living at two different depths.

Regardless whether it was the same octopus or not the only thing I know for sure is that my buddy and I were side by side leisurely looking at the cephalopod. Suddenly I turn my head towards my buddy and saw that he was not there anymore. “What the Heck!” I thought “Where the hell is he?” Eventually I looked far enough towards the sandy bottom and I was able to see him. He was about 15 feet away from me. I saw him swimming back towards me and the octopus’s den in a suspiciously unusual hurry.

When I also saw what he was holding in one of his hands I sighed and thought “OH NO! He is not going to try to lure the octopus out of its den by showing him a delicious large Dungeness Crab, is he?” He was. But before he even had the chance to wake up the octopus with the smell and taste of a crab that was gesticulating its legs madly in a vain attempt to escape my buddy’s grip, the crab smartened up and pinched one of my buddy’s fingers!

He did not bother to signal me that the crab hurt his finger and I believed that the crab was loose free and trying to run away to safety because it simply slipped from his hand! If I was really surprised to witness what my buddy had just done, I was totally shocked to find myself turning into his accomplice. I guess I must have been possessed by a kind of underwater wicked force because all my concerns about animals’ welfare went straight out of the window and my brain shut my conscience off.

With the determination of a newly recruited criminal that has to prove herself I grabbed the crab with the intention to do what? Give it back to my buddy so he could carry out his treacherous plan? Or swam to the octopus’s den with it and becoming the one who was going to commit that ‘crime’? I was not sure. My brain didn’t have enough time to process what I was doing and make decisions because the crab took charge of the situation and pinched one of my fingers exactly in the same way as it did with my buddy! (The only crabs that I had ever handled until then were dead ones washed out on beaches&#8230

There was no way that I would have second thoughts, the crab made its point clear and loud: DON’T MESS WITH ME BABY! I immediately let the crab go; I could not believe how painful my finger was. At last the Dungeness Crab was finally free to dash as fast as it could to a place where hopefully there were not silly divers trying to alluring a Giant Pacific Octopus out of its den by sacrificing a crab because they wanted to see more of it! What a lesson that we learned at the end of our fourth and last dive!

During this whole questionable interaction with marine life we kept watching our air. We were at a depth of about 35 FSW. When time was up we made a controlled ascent and surface swam back to our point of entry: The Cut.

On the tiny beach of The Cut we met Kevin and Patty, a local friendly couple who had a pair of Force Fins like mine except for the straps, as Sambolino 44 mentioned in his post. I will always remember that right at the very end of my 130th dive (I guess an even number that ends with a zero is easier to remember), after the Dungeness Crab-Giant Pacific Octopus ordeal I saw another diver with Force Fins for the first time. Like me, Patty is a new diver and Kevin (for many years a commercial diver) gave her his Force Fins while he uses a more conventional type.

In my case I ended up with my yellow Force Fins because when my buddy bought a High Tide dry suit with huge boots he could not fit them in his fins anymore so he bought another pair but a size larger and I, by default, inherited the smaller ones!

Kevin, Patty and their pair of Force Fins

Our diving trip during Labor Day Weekend to Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver, British Columbia was truly a memorable and remarkable experience!

Whytecliff Park Dive Site with Patty(the blue spot on the left) waiting for her buddy to drive their pick- up truck closer to the beach so they could haul the gear after their dive. Photo by Sam Osteen

 

[Soakedlontra]

[vimeo]8769147[/vimeo]

 

[Soakedlontra]

Unidentified Submersible Object at ****** September 20, 2009
​

Sleeping has been more difficult lately. Maybe because I am a light sleeper and if my body is not knocked out by constant diurnal activities my brain cannot disconnect my ears from the external world with the consequence that they begin to listen to the ‘grass that grows’ in my back yard (now, the beginning of fall, it is the time when grass grows, at least in this neck of the woods. A process that lasts nonstop day and night for months on end).

Or maybe it is my back that a week ago, out of the blue, began to stiffen and punish me with twinges of pain as soon my movements were too skittish and badly footed and now that tired pile of bones cannot find a comfortable spot on my semi-cheap spring mattress to rest in peace.

No! That’s not it! It’s the jets from the navy base that keep zooming and booming by just high enough to avoid crashing against street light poles and dogs’ pens until 1 am in the morning!

Or maybe the cause of my insomnia is a combination of all these factors! Or maybe not…maybe there is something else that is bugging my mind. Something which prevents the neurons of my brain to go to sleep. Something that I cannot pin down…yet.

Memory can sometimes be a very unreliable source of information. Among all fading places I have been, muffled conversations that I have been listening to and vanishing things that I have seen lately I remember clearly one thing only. I remember taking a weird picture…A picture of what?...That’s it! I bet that, that precise question, is what has been keeping me awake like a mosquito buzzing inside one of my ear canals!

I search for this image that it’s stored inside the memory card of my point and shoot digital camera and download it on my old PC. The image in question is not an Ansel Adams type which is beautifully composed and extremely detailed, but the kind that resembles more of a 19th century visual experiment taken with a pin-hole camera. Despite its grain and odd bi-toned color, this photograph is slowly opening up the doors of my worn-out memory.

What do I see in the picture? On the top a hint of what may be a dim and lumpy horizon, below it a uniform mass of darkness that breaks up, perhaps, in a couple of unrecognizable silhouettes, and on the bottom right corner a pale yellow triangle emerges from a harsh light. White particles are suspended in this light too.

Am I in outer space and this is the picture of the detail of a UFO? I don’t recall ever traveling on a spaceship, though…and as far as I know nobody has found hard evidence of UFOs existence yet. Or am I underwater during a night dive in the northern part of the Puget Sound, WA, with a limited light supply and notorious bad visibility?

Among all the different elements of this confusing photograph the yellow triangle on the bottom right corner is the one that my memory immediately latches onto. It may have something to do with geometry, the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras who postulated a theorem about a triangle and lived near the Mediterranean Sea, whose shores were not too far away from the city I was born. Or maybe I am simply attracted to yellow…the color of warm and soothing summer days.

Whatever the reason for picking on the yellow triangle, the bottom line is that detail convinces me that I was in the water when I took the picture and not in space! Slowly but steadily memories begin to unroll like a ball of alpaca wool thread that is knitted into a beautifully crafted jumper.

For the first time in my diving history I let my buddy assemble my gear. I had to because my back was bothering me. He also carried the rig to the water where I was able to wear it without straining my back further. Floating in that liquid element made me feel that I was weightless. At the same time it was like being suspended in something that was worse than miso soup. I would say was more like minestrone.

We were supposed to do two dives at Langley Marina where we would practice some skills. The controlled ascent drills went OK. However we had to cut this first dive short not because of back pain but because my bladder stubbornly wouldn’t relax and leave me alone!

If I had worn my semi-dry suit it wouldn’t have been a big deal, I would marinate again in my own pee. But because I was wearing my dry suit (it came back from the repair shop a week or so earlier) I was not willing to put up with wet undergarments unless it was absolutely necessary. So after our last planned controlled ascent we surface-swam back to the beach.

By the time we were ready to get into the water to do our second skill dive it was already dark. Stars were cheering up the black sky, the air was mild and sweet, and pigeons were getting ready to spend the night underneath the wooden dock of the marina, probably owls were hiding deep inside the crowns of trees, while a great blue heron flew out of the darkness and perched on an old, disused, rotten pier.

We changed our original plan and decided to do a fun night dive instead of practicing other skills. We surface swam back out to a wall made of pilings. While swimming with my belly up I was able to take some seriously underexposed pictures before the camera housing buttons jammed making the camera go crazy once we were underwater.

At our descending spot we got ready to submerge. Then I noticed that my buddy’s inflator hose was twisted and told him about it. He tried to pull it off but couldn’t do it. So he decided that we could go ahead and descend. But about a half way through the descent my buddy signaled me to swim back up. I could sense that he was a bit worried. I figured that something was wrong with his inflator hose.

Once we reached the surface he orally inflated his BC. I was not sure whether he needed help or not (the only thing I could think of doing was to hold him by one of his D rings) and I waited for him to ask for it (in the past I got in trouble because I took the initiative and tried to help him out without asking permission first&#8230. He didn’t need any and after he was able to float he messed with the inflator hose again. This time he was able to pull it off and put it back on and it worked as normal.

It was hard to control that ascent in the dark by trying to look at the computer display (at last I have my own computer and I was testing it) with a pistol grip light on my right hand in blue water. We ended up going up too fast for the computer liking (but its alarm did not ring!). We hoped for the best, went back down and finally began our night dive!

The visibility was far less than ideal. At the beginning of the dive I could see my buddy only when he was about one foot away from me. When I looked down to the bottom I have to be so close to it that my nose almost touched it, but it was worth it because it was packed jammed with life. As usual the visibility improved a little at depth.

There are several marine habitats at Langley marina: an eel grass bed, sandy-muddy bottom and an artificial reef made of tires and several poles and other man-made bits and bops that form a disorganized and confusing pile of junk. Originally the tires were part of a floating breakwater that sunk so the artificial reef came about by chance. The depth of the reef varies between about 40 and 50FSW depending on the tide.

​

Visibility is extremely variable, but tends to be low a lot of times because the site lay on the eastern side of Whidbey Island where there is usually a lower flow of water and several big rivers dump their silt into these more protected waters. Current is not an issue here, we can dive this site without checking prediction tables and when weather conditions are bad everywhere else on the island here is always a reliable site to dive, unless the wind blows from the north.

Unfortunately Langley Tire Reef as we know it is going to be a dive site of the past soon. The Port of South Whidbey has plans to expand the existing marina and the easy access to the water for divers from the beach will disappear. The old messy tires and leaking pilings coated with creosote will be removed.

A local diver and councilman for the city of Langley has proposed to the Port the creation of an ambitious new dive site that includes a brand new artificial reef. Unfortunately WA is not British Columbia where coastal towns are fighting each other to have the next artificial reef being sunk in their waters. So who knows what we will end up with at Langley.

Anyway, what did we actually see during our night dive?

Wasn’t that bright Red Irish Lord gorgeous? What about that odd ghostly looking sea slug called Hooded Nubibranch? It could have been originally fallen into the ocean from an alien planet! And those little worms like guys that were attracted to our dive lights and kept swimming in front of our masks following us whenever we swam? What were they? And those Flat Fish and Snake Pricklebacks that were dashing off in all directions. Not to mention the cloud of rock fish and perch that was hovering above our heads! What about those five Sailfin Sculpins? I have never seen so many in one dive before! And those fellows, what are they called?, Ah! The Rough Back Sculpin next to the Plainfin Midshipman? And those two huge Dungeness Crabs that were pulling in opposite directions some sort of fish skin? Did you see that young rock fish with two long and thin things sticking out from its mouth? I bet they were the antennae of a coonstripe shrimp. The fish must have swollen it in one gulp when we were not looking and it could not fit it all in its stomach!

This has already turned into a never-ending story! Better wrap it up by squeezing it inside one single weird photograph that turned out to be the cause of my sleeplessness:

 

[Soakedlontra]

A couple weeks back my brother and I went to Roatan...

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

picture removed

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Man! I cannot wait to dive with my Force Fins in warm, clear and blue water for a change!

 

[Soakedlontra]

Force Fins, pilings and docks. Part One
​

Another weekend was approaching. A good sunny one according to the weather forecaster! Without wasting any time, I began to wonder how I could make the most of it! After ruling that going backpacking with my dodgy back was still out of the question, I decided that scuba diving may have put less stress on my back with the condition that my buddy would have to keep lifting and carrying to the water all my heavy equipment as he did few days ago. For this reason I picked a dive site that had parking close to the water and an easy entry for both my bones and buddy.

So here we were! Beginning the endless, ‘forget-me- not’ process of packing scuba gear! Along the way, somehow, the cheerful atmosphere in the Rock House (the 1939 river rocks cottage that we rent) increasingly became saturated with frustrating vibes! Maybe the fact that the house was apparently, at some point, the jail of our town had something to do with it. Who knows what went on between these low walls and small windows! Maybe these same walls had had enough to witness conflicts and dramas and couldn’t wait for us to get the hell out of the house by making its air even more irritating to our brain cells!

For some reasons spiders also seemed to be coming out from every corner and plug hole as never before. These eight-eyed creatures don’t waste precious energy in arguing about who is doing and not doing what, though. They are smarter than us: without any fuss and discreetly, they spin their cobwebs in the most unexpected places and get rid of unwelcoming insects that buzz around while we sleep or mess with the kitchen garbage can.

Or it is the fact that Halloween is approaching? Even if I don’t watch ads on television (because I do not have one) or listen to commercial radio stations, I know what has been happening. A glimpse at the door step of my neighbor, who is already displaying a plastic jack-o’-lantern and every trip to the grocery store that ends up by signing the grocery receipt with a ball pen that doesn’t end with a plastic flower anymore but a pumpkin plastic cut out are signs which make me realize that YES! It’s that time of the year already!

My buddy and I survived our heated exchange of opinions, recriminations and blah-blah… We managed to fill the car up almost to its roof with scuba and camping gear. Finally we could relax our butts on its old stiff seats, drive off to Port Townsend in the Olympic Peninsula and switch off! But this sudden peace of mind came with a price…

We are not the kind of folks who plan and make reservations months in advance. We like to act guided by the spirit of the moment, like gypsies, without the constrains of bookings and a fixed schedule etc. However this time booking the ferry from Keystone to Port Townsend (the cheapest and fastest way to get there from Oak Harbor) one week, or even more, in advance would have made a lot of sense! So here we were driving to Edmonds to catch a more expensive ferry in Kingston, Kitsap Peninsula, and reaching Port Townsend in a circle rather than a straight line!

Diving in downtown Port Townsend means to be under the scrutiny of numerous passer-bys especially when in town there is a Film Festival and Sea Kayak Symposium going on at the same time! Not to mention that when the Wooden Boat and the Kinetic Art Festivals are taking place I can imagine that it would be almost impossible for divers to find parking near the waterfront and a free square inch of sand to lay the gear on in the small downtown beach, never mind being ‘bombarded’ by hundreds of onlookers’ gazes and questions!

The dives sites in Port Townsend are in the old part of the town, where 19th century brick buildings have miracously survived the developers’ bulldozers. Art galleries, tasteful shops and a variety of cafes, restaurants and bars, the year around cultural events and the friendly and easy going atmosphere increase the charm of Port Townsend to a point that you can almost forget to go diving altogether!

However the earthy town friendliness doesn’t necessarily translate in the same way underwater…Port Townsend faces Admiralty Inlet and the best dive site is located between a dolphin and the right side of the town marina breakwaters at Hudson Point. A small stretch of water where current can get really strong and drag a diver into the Inlet. You should check the tables and dive at slack or when there is a minimum exchange of water.

On top of that there are watercrafts of all sorts that cruise around or are moored at the docks. You have to watch out for pilings while you surface swim and overhead structures if you ascend in blue water and don’t follow the contour of the bottom. In the shallows there is an eelgrass bed that the city is protecting by having placed buoys on the outer edge of the bed to allow boats to moor without damaging the eelgrass. It was the first time that I saw a coastal town that actually cared about eelgrass. So while swimming through there be careful not to pull it off!

We reached Port Townsend in the morning with the idea of doing two dives. We would do the first dive drifting between a couple of docks and later in the day the second at Hudson Point when the current was supposed to be minimal. We dressed up on the stretch of beach that is next to the Pope Marine Theatre, one of the venues of the Film Festival. The cinema goers who were waiting to go inside to watch a movie had the bonus to watch a different kind of spectacle: two divers getting ready to go diving! And what a spectacle it is if the two divers have a romantic relationship…And of course when I had to wear my hood I couldn't find it anywhere! It was back home on top of the water heater...Luckily my buddy remembered to grab the bag with spare gear where there was another one that I could use!

I was the first to get into the water and while I was floating around staring at the blue sky in an almost Buddhist trance, my buddy was busy chatting with two folks…You just cannot help it here! To tell the truth he was actually multitasking himself, combining talking with donning his scuba gear at the same time!

When we were finally through with the buddy and bubble check we surfaced swam to our left toward the old ferry terminal and while kicking with my Force Fins I could admire the interesting buildings, the numerous pilings and wharfs panning away. It was almost like watching going by the marble and brick architectural marvels of Venezia laying down on a gondola! Because, unfortunately for Venezia, you wouldn’t want to surface swim in one of its murky and smelly canals…Would you? I have no idea what kind of sewage treatment that city has, if it has any…

At the selected dock we submerged. We went down to about 8 ft and all of a sudden my buddy signaled me to go back up! At the surface he told me that his air smelled and he wanted to call off the dive. So we did and surface swam back to our starting point: the stretch of beach next to the Pope Marine Theatre.

While undressing we began conversing with one of the Film Festival volunteers. He was a diver who dives without tanks! He tethered a small air compressor on the surface and goes down to a maximum depth of 40 fsw. In that way he had a constant supply of air that allows him to dive for hours on end! He is perfectly happy to hang around at a shallow depth.

 

[Soakedlontra]

Force Fins, pilings and docks. Part Two
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By the time we were through talking, having a bite to eat and reassembling our gear we were ready for going diving at Hudson Point. At the water entry we talked to a diver named Rich who was familiar with the site and with whom I dived this same site last spring. He told us that a Giant Pacific Octopus lives inside a short log not far away from the dolphin.

Shadow Divers and the brand-new Northwest Maritime Center

Once again I was the first one to be in the water. I gently stretched my body trapped inside all constricting gear to relax my back looking east at Whidbey Island and the pale moon that was already visible because of the angled weakening sunlight.

In order to reach the dive site we had to surface swim to the dolphin that was standing between the Northwest Maritime Center pier and the marina breakwaters. Belly up, we kicked our fins, pushing our way through blue, calm water, and under the newly built pier of the maritime center.

When we reached the older dolphin we rested for a little before submerging. With only the sound of our breaths vibrating the surrounding air we did some bird watching and counted the feathers of a great blue heron that was roosting on the concrete top of the dolphin. We have never been so close to that tall, skittish and cranky bird before.

This time we descended without any problems into the whiteness of plumose anemones which covered the pilings of the dolphin and through a large school of shiner perch mixed with rock fish. The bottom of the western side of this marine structure was about 20fsw. We looked for the small log that was supposed to be the den of a GPO but after one failing attempt to find it we gave up because our main goal was to swim to a small barge that lied at about 50fsw toward the rocks of the marina breakwater and we did not want to waste all our air looking for an animal that may have been or not been there.

We followed a rope down the slope but when I realized that we were at 67 fsw and we didn’t spot the barge at all I figured that we were going in the wrong direction (that rope would have taken us to a depth of about 90 fsw, so Rich told us). So I signaled my buddy to turn around and then I spotted another rope that followed the bottom upslope and we begin to swim in that direction.

Bingo! A dark angular shape slowly emerged from the green water. The visibility was not too bad, I guess between 20 and 25 ft. The closer we got to the wreck the more details showed up in front of our eyes. Like the skeleton of a marine mammal ribs like pieces of metal were protruding from its flanks and a boxed shaped structure with the top torn open was standing precariously from the hull of the barge.

Copper, brown, quillback, yellow tail, Puget Sound and black rock fish were all around us, swimming in and out the numerous holes and cracks of the barge together with kelp and painted greenlings. Sculpins of various sizes were resting on the metal of the wreck encrusted with sponges, tube worms and algae. The most bizarre of all was the Grunt Sculpin, a little fellow that doesn’t look like a fish at all but a cross between a frog and a seahorse? Instead of swimming it crawls on the bottom with pectoral fins that move like a pair of legs.

After inspecting the barge from the left to the right and vice versa we began to swim slowly back looking at the marine life that inhabited the rocks of the marina breakwater. Whenever there was a gap between them the sandy bottom was littered with clean crab shells and legs. ‘There must be a Giant Pacific Octopus den around here!’ I thought. I checked every single crevice with my dive light. They were all empty. But still the constant sight of the remains of a GPO's favorite meal all over the place made me hopeful so I did not give up and kept looking until…

Hurriedly I tried to get my buddy’s attention. He responded to my frantic signals pretty quick and swam to the entrance of Giant Pacific Octopus den. This time we did not mess with crabs and left them alone to get on with their lives instead! We were happy to gaze at the octopus’ large suckers and further back into the den watching its tranquil breathing with eyes closed that reminded me of a tired big baby who had just ‘sunk’ into a deep sleep. It was the second Giant Pacific Octopus that I had found without the help of another diver!

After taking a few pictures we began to swim to our safety stop spot. In the shallow water the eelgrass was swarming with the alien-ghost looking hooded nudibranchs. Some were swimming in mid water by wiggling their whole bodies. What a bizarre spectacle! We wanted to film one of them, but I guess it was not meant to be because I did not realize that earlier on inadvertently I must have pushed the display button on the camera making the screen go black and blank! Once again I thought the buttons of the housing got stuck. I was wrong! If I had pressed the display button again to get rid of that ‘no-image’ mode I would have ended up shooting the swimming hooded nudibranch…

We surfaced further back from our entry point. As usual I was desperate to go to the bathroom. (I don’t know what’s going lately…a dry suit is supposed to reduce the urge of peeing not make it worse!). My bladder took charge of my body, not my brain, and in the confusion of getting my rig off in the water while holding my mask and the light I did not realize that when finally I was freed by all that weight and I began to run like somebody who has just seen a real ghost toward the restrooms I had dropped my mask into the water.

My buddy was overloaded with gear and he decided to carry everything all at once by wading in the water to our entry point. He did not realize that my mask was missing. During that trip he lost one of his Force Fins. Fortunately he found it later. As for my mask, when I was able to go back into the water again I grabbed my buddy’s mask and a snorkel and began to search for it under a moonlight that by then was breaking the surface of the water in golden sparks. I found it straight away!

After all this ‘lost and found’ messing around with the scuba gear we were ready to forget about diving for a while and let ourselves to be seduced by the earthy charm of Port Townsend. We walked to Taylor Street to watch a free movie! We sat down on the hard, black tarmac leaning our backs against a straw bale and looked at moving images on a gigantic inflatable screen as if it was a modified bouncing castle (I never saw one like that before). Of course the movie was one third through but it was not that difficult to figure out what the beginning had been like.

The title of the movie was “The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.”…Never heard it before. It was the only feature film written by Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss). I did not know what the hell he was until my buddy mentioned that he wrote “The Cat in the Hat”, a children’s book which I have never read, but occasionally seen some of its illustrations. It was pure escapism. That was exactly what I needed after exploring the underwater world of Port Townsend, even if I have never been very fond of musicals.

The air was mild, the sky dotted with stars that we could not see and crows were hanging around on the lookout for some food leftovers. It felt like being in the city where I was born and grew up during the summer months when courtyards and squares are turned into open theatres and people unglue their faces from television screens to socialize with real human beings. While I was gazing at those 1953 futuristic bright costumes and bold modernist film sets my mind flew back underwater and rested for a short while in front of the Giant Pacific Octopus den and thought “You haven’t a clue about what you are missing! Have you?”

At lot of people in the audience where eating take away food while watching the movie (the crows knew it too). We had some crackers and cheese earlier on, but getting glimpses of those munching mouths and smelling the street air that was saturated with an attractive cocktail of oriental cuisine, freshly baked pizzas, and microwave warmed up quiches and savory pastries made my stomach rumble again. So at the end of the show I was starving for something hot and steamy full of locally grown vegetables!

We ended up ordering a noodle soup at the Hanazono Asian Noodle whose door was right next to us! It was the best noodle soup I have ever had. I savored it by drinking cold, unfiltered sake that looked like almond milk, which I have never tested before. Sadly time went by really fast at the small and friendly restaurant. After the meal we drove back to our camp site at the Old Fort Townsend State Park, few miles south of Port Townsend, to get some sleep and be ready for another day of diving!

**********​

'Hei Buddy! Can I show up at your Halloween Party? Don't I have the best outfit?'

(I took this photo of a swimming Hooded Nudibranch last year while snorkeling at Keystone)

**********​

 

[Soakedlontra]

...and I keep thinking about this:

...and

Seattle Art Museum: Exhibition Information

if you want to combine scuabdiving and art in the Pacific Northwest!

 

[Soakedlontra]

Sunday, September 27, began with a cool and sunny morning. The night at the Old Fort Townsend State Park campground went by peacefully. Our neighbors did not throw wild parties, play with guns or watch loud television. However, when I went to the restrooms there was an uncanny sound of recorded voices and music that filled the building. I could not figure out where it came from… Puzzled and sleepy I walked back to the tent.

Along the way I spooked a raccoon that caused a rattle while climbing a tree. After looking into its clown’s black eyes, I moved on. Deep and silent shadows of tall trees enveloped me. At that point I began to notice a muffled mechanical sound that I could not recognize at first. Eventually I realized that it came from the nearby paper mill. For me, a grass growing listener, that distant man-made noise was a source of irritation and once inside the tent I promptly I pulled out ear plugs. For my buddy it was ambient music to fall asleep with.

During breakfast we decided to go diving in a place that was new for both of us. Considering that we had a long drive back home and everybody else was going to drive on the same roads as us, we chose a site that was not too far from Kingston ferry terminal: Illahee State Park near East Bremerton.

The park was not very busy so we were able to leave the car right in front of the beach. Like in Port Townsend some people would stop to talk to us while we were spreading our scuba garments and gear all over the car and on the ground.

Multipurpose Scuba Car

One guy used to scuba dive a long time ago but certainly liked to hang around for a while to talk about his past scuba experiences. His female companion got bored after listening to scuba jargon for about a minute and walked away. After a short while he left too. Then a lady with children showed up. She told us all about her son, a single parent with four kids, who had just had open heart surgery and wanted to go back diving. She asked us if we knew whether he was going to be able to scuba dive again or not. Apparently a couple of doctors gave him contradictory information about this matter.

We told her that we were not qualified to make that kind of judgment and that the best thing her son could do was to contact DAN (Divers Alert Network). I explained to her that it was with DAN’s help that I was able to find a physician who was also a diver when during my OP class, I could not equalize my ears and I ended up with a middle ear barotrauma. She thanked us and headed for the beach. You really don’t know what kind of life stories you may hear while getting dressed to go scuba diving!

Eventually, slowly, we got ready to hit the water. Luckily that day we did not have to catch slack because the dive site was not very current sensitive! As usual I donned my rig in the water and while my buddy went back to the car to put his rig on I let myself float on the tranquil surface like a piece of driftwood while Tahoma (=Snowy Mountain Peak=Mt. Rainier) imperturbably and imposingly kept an eye on me.

We surface swam close to the end of a fishing pier, which ended with several floating docks where most of the fishermen were hanging around.

Underwater the visibility went from acceptable at shallow depths to disappointingly less acceptable at 50 fsw in the muddy and sandy ‘lunar mare’ like bottom that stretched out in all directions after the floating docks. That featureless world was the headquarters of pretty purplish Slender Cancer Crabs and seasoned Red Rock Crabs whose carapaces were colonized by barnacles and other small creatures as if they were at the end of their molting cycle.

When we encountered a Crescent Gunnel curling up like a little snake on that barren waterscape it was like spotting a naked human being in the middle of Bonneville Salt Flats!

The fish seemed to be transfixed by our lights to begin with but after a while it got fed up of having those bright beams pointing straight into its eyes and began to swim away from us disappearing into the divers-hassle-free green darkness desperately looking for anything hollow where it could fit its body and hide it.

After wishing good luck to the gunnel we checked our air and it was already time to head back to the pier. Off we swam slowly along the gentle slope to our safety stop. I don’t recall seeing Coonstripe Shrimps popping out from a cluster of Plumose Anemones but I guess it must have happened because my buddy took several pictures of them.

But I do recall turning my head at some point and focusing my eyes on a unmistakable man- made object that was attached to a thin line on one end and had a piece of something on the other and looked dangerously pointed: it was a baited fish hook! I wanted to make my buddy aware of its presence but at the end I did not bother because he was already swimming away from it. When we reached the pilings of the pier we were engulfed by schools of Shiner Perch and Tubesnouts:

[vimeo]8771183[/vimeo]

After spending some time with those little fellows, I ended the dive in a convulsive hurry because I thought I was going to ‘die’ of bladder cramps! I dropped all my gear on my buddy’s arms and vanished into the restrooms. My buddy had to hold and carry all my gear again, lost one fin and found it a moment later.

While we were disassembling the rigs, after rinsing them at the provided shower, a fisherman walked by and asked us the predictable question: “Did you see any big fish?” The reply was “No! There are only small guys down there!” His face showed some disappointment. I guess I have must given him an answer that he did not want to hear.

Later on an eccentric elderly woman with a Mohawk hairstyle stopped by and engaged my buddy in a long conversation whose content, I believe, was mostly about marine life. Every time he would mention to her the name of an animal that we encountered underwater she would cry out full of wonder and amazement like a child!

When finally she walked away we were able to toss whatever was left laying around in the car (except for one thing), have few minutes in peace and quiet to eat some quick food and drive back to Kingston ferry terminal. We did think that the traffic was going to a bit congested, but we did not expect to have to wait two hours before we were able to board on the ferry!

While we were in the ferry lane my buddy turned the engine off and left his car key between the dash board and the steering wheel, which were detached from each other leaving a gap…and...by the hands of some wicked, invisible genie the key fell inside that gap!

After the initial cannot-help-it cussing, he then proceeded to try to retrieve that bloody key by sticking his head underneath the steering wheel and resting his feet on the car seat. While he was messing around down there with a flash light I kept an eye on the vehicle in front of us. Fortunately we were not stuck in the middle of a ferry lane full of drivers anxious to rush back home because we did have a spare car key with us: mine!

We were able to drive the car onto the ferry. Two more times my buddy tried to find his key. After that he gave up and drove the car home with the missing key resting somewhere in the dark and greasy recesses of the steering wheel column and below the dashboard.

At the Rock House (our home) he began to unpack his gear and at last it occurred to him that something had happened to his dive light…He couldn’t find it anywhere! Unfortunately after a thorough search he had to resign himself to the frustrating fact that he must had left the light somewhere between the beach and the parking lot of the state park! Right now somebody must be enjoying that free light and rechargeable batteries…God bless him/her!

…And what about his car key? A few days later we went diving at Langley marina. That same day he had asked me to make a copy of the key…and guess what? I forgot to go to the store to get one. After the dive, he drove out of the marina parking lot using my car key again and…Lo and Behold! His key fell on the car floor close to his feet!

 

[Soakedlontra]

Lately days had been filled with claustrophobic, gloomy skies; showers that smelled of mushrooms; breezes that stripped deciduous trees of some of their tired leaves, which turned my neighborhood into a carpet of yellow, brown and occasional red, and acorns that dropped onto the ground like hail knocking at the Rock House roof, recycling and garbage cans lids.

Yesterday, Wednesday October 21, clouds began to retreat and allowed the sun to break free. Golden light poured over the serene ocean water and saturated the air at Driftwood Beach Park. There I was with my buddy assembling my gear for an evening-night dive.

A double rainbow appeared eastward, a colorful smile on a backdrop of otherwise depressive flat, deep gray while to the west the sun was sinking into other deep gray clouds and the sky put up a show of orange hues.

According to the current tables we were supposed to dive at slack but it never showed up! At this site the bottom slopes down to an almost 45 ° angle and levels off at a depth between 50 and about 60 fsw depending on the tide. The current pushed us westward right from the shallows to our maximum depth of 59fsw. Throughout the duration of the dive it never stopped rolling us toward Keystone jetty. We were like two blades of kelp into the hands of whimsical moving water, gliding over a muddy and sandy bottom littered with broken clam and crab shells. Huge sunflower sea stars were busy digging pits in search for shellfish to satisfy their enormous appetite. Few timid rock fish were hovering nearby some kind of shelters.

That was it!... at first glance… It may had been the most boring dive that I had ever did if I did not mange to spot tiny creatures that I had never seen before and are usually very hard to see.

I am still amazed on how I was able to recognize a microscopic Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker a fish that looks like a featureless lump only few inches long. Its modified pelvic fin is an adhesive disc that allows the fish to attach itself on a support. From time to time I would encounter miniature clouds of small white shrimps like animals and red and kelp colored bigger shrimps that I was not familiar with.

I did have the camera with me underwater but I did not take any pictures because I did not want to over-load myself with tasks. Dealing with the current and darkness was enough. When time was up we surfaced in the middle of nowhere…I mean we could hardly see our point of entry. We must have drifted for about a half a mile at least. It took us about 30 minutes to wade and surface swam back to Driftwood Beach Park under the dim yellow light of a baby moon.

My dry gloves were grotesquely swollen like two oddly shaped balloons. Despite my efforts I could not get rid of that air. My fingers were not that agile but I was still able to hold the light to scrutinize the water that kept sweeping westward. I noticed that on the surface broken blades of eelgrass and bull kelp were loaded with Hooded Nubibranchs. Some were also swimming in the water column still alive, but the majority of them looked pretty stiff dead. It was a procession of little marine ghosts. The current was their master, who knows where they all ended up at the end.

 

[Soakedlontra]

Sorry I removed the video # oghcjrbQm8E (Force Fins All Over The Place...Part One Work in Progress) because of some bloody spelling mistakes that I have just noticed.