It's that time of year again. I didn't expect it quite this soon, but I think I'll be doing a lot of solo diving over the next couple months. On Sunday someone mentioned to me that they'd seen some lumpsuckers in an eel grass bed at my local mudhole. Lumpsuckers are these fish that look like a tiny, colored golf ball with spiny fins and tail ... in fact, that's one in my avatar. They're primarily nocturnal, and the best chance of finding them is at night. So I had to go see for myself.
I arrived at the dive site just as the sun was setting over the Olympic mountains. Getting dressed, I sat on my tailgate and enjoyed the sunset, then geared up and headed to the water as dusk turned to dark.
Entering the water, I pulled on my fins, slipped below the surface, and started kicking downslope ... destination, the eel grass beds that start just a few feet below the low tide mark. The first thing I noticed was that the water was moving along at a surprising pace. Hmmm ... familiarity breeds complacency sometimes ... despite the fact that I've got maybe 300 dives here, I really should start paying attention to the tidal exchanges ... turns out I caught it on a max ebb. No big whoop, except that it's hard to find little critters in the eel grass when it's waving around furiously in the current. It wasn't hard, though, to spot the hooded nudibranchs feeding on the bits of plankton that were covering every available surface down there ... there were thousands of them. Glowing a translucent white in the beam of my light, the sight of thousands of undulating slugs clinging to eel grass waving around in the current was almost dizzying ... but utterly fascinating to watch. Facing into the current, I was able to get a few decent pictures ... and then I let the current carry me along as I searched the eel grass for my prize. At about 20 minutes into the dive I found one ... about the size of a cough drop, colored green, gray and black. Cute little bugger. Getting pictures was hard, between the fact that he was stuck to a piece of grass that was constantly moving and the fact that it was hard for me to hold position in the current. But I snapped off a few (mostly out of focus) and continued on my way, hoping to find more. I didn't ... but I did find several other intersting critters before ending the dive at 62 minutes, with a max depth of 14 feet.
This marks the beginning of my favorite time of the year to dive here. I love night diving, but my day typically begins at 3:30 AM, which makes night diving difficult during the months when darkness comes late. These eel grass beds are a nursery this time of year, and I expect I'll be doing 40 or 50 dives here between now and about January ... most of them solo. Later this evening ... when I have a chance to download my camera ... I hope to have a couple pictures to share ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
