I had an interesting dive last night at my local mudhole ... Redondo. Over the past few weeks I've been finding lumpsuckers there fairly regularly ... until about a week ago. Then ... four dives in a row ... no lumpies. Now, they're not exactly a common sighting in Puget Sound ... most Puget Sound divers go hundreds of dives without ever seeing one. So I was kinda thinking that something must've brought 'em here ... and maybe that something was no longer here to attract 'em ... because suddenly they weren't here anymore.
Being a stubborn cuss, I kept trying ... the bottle field where I've been finding them is between 80 and 100 feet, and finding one usually takes some effort ... so I typically kick down there pretty fast and spend my entire NDL time looking ... or taking pictures if I find one.
Anyway, tonight was a bit different. I spotted some "unusual" things on my way down and stopped for some pictures. So when I got down there, I figured I'd be hitting deco before heading back up. I kicked around down there ... slowly ... carefully ... looking for lumpie sign. Nothin' ...
I was just about to give up when I noticed a stir in the silt ahead of me. As I approached, I noticed a dungeness crab trying desperately to get away from a big ol' sun star. Now, usually they just run away ... but this one seemed to be trapped. Getting a bit closer, I could see that she'd gotten a bit of old fishing line wrapped around a couple of her claws, and as that fishing line was strung all over the bottom, it had her well tied in place. A second sun star was closing in. I put down my camera, picked up the crab, broke the fishing line, and turned her loose. Without so much as a "thanks", she took off like a screamin' banshee away from me and those sun stars. Well, OK ... time to go.
On a whim ... or maybe just because I was a bit narced ... I turned my eyes surfaceward and had a thought ... "Hey, Big Guy ... I just saved one of Your critters from an ugly death. There's this thing called karma ... how about finding me a lumpie on the way outta this bottle field." Silly me ... I'm not that sort, and even if I was, He don't work that way.
On the other hand ... about 30 seconds later, there it was ... sitting on a bottle just as pretty as you please.
I stopped, got my pictures ... turned my eyes surfaceward again and said "Thanks Dude ... now let's talk about my 401K."
Anyway ... here's some shots from the dive ... in truth, the lumpie shot turned out to be less interesting than some of the other ones I took ...
A rock sole giving me the "stink-eye" ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
) my ascent rate went from slow/normal to fast and with some fiddling back down to normal/slow. The computer safety stop time was all messed up so at some point I thought "screw the safety stop and let's go to the surface!". Anyway we hung in there and finally reached the surface with a decent ascent rate. What a trip!
