My local mudhole ... Redondo.
Peter Guy and I had plans to dive Hood Canal, but the weather forecast called for a blustery, rainy day ... typical mid-November weather in the PNW. So we decided to stay local. We arranged to meet for a late morning dive. But when I woke up, the weather was still calm ... so I decided to sneak in an early one.
I arrived at the parking lot around 5:30 AM ... there was not another human being in sight. I geared up, walked across the street to the beach, and slipped into the water right around 6. There wasn't a breath of wind, and just a hint of clouds scudding across the sky ... occasionally blotting out the moonlight. It was about as peaceful and quiet as it ever gets. Finning up, I dropped beneath the surface and started kicking downslope. About 30 seconds into the dive ... in about 6 feet of water ... I found my first interesting subject ... a bay pipefish.
A few moments later I found another one ...
About five minutes into the dive, something larger went streaking by ... I could barely make out the motion in the halo of my light. Visibility was great, and moving my light around I saw something small and pink waving in the distance. A fishing lure ??? From where? There was no sound of boats above, and I was too far from the pier ... and it was moving in a way that it couldn't be coming from shore. Suddenly it moved within range of my beam ... a harbor seal with a tag in its tail ... trailing a bit of pink ribbon. It circled me a couple times and disappeared into the depths. I went on about my dive.
Tiny flabellina nudibranchs ... maybe a half-inch in length ... were going about their nocturnal business in the kelp fronds ...
... and at last, I spied the objective of my search on this dive ... the Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker ... a goofy looking fish about the size (and motion) of a bumblebee ...
I spent the next half-hour heading south, paralleling the beach, checking out the kelp fronds and various detritus common to an urban beach ... looking to see who calls it home. Turning the dive, I headed back toward my entry point as dawn slowly approached. With the onset of daylight ... still barely perceptible above me ... massive schools of shiner perch suddenly appearred, darting this way and that in what was either morning exercises or a frantic search for breakfast. I was seeing less and less of the creatures I had been seeing during the first half of my dive ... as the nocturnal shift ws turning in and the daylight shift was taking its place.
I love this time of day.
A slight motion caught my eye, and following it with my beam I watched as a lumpsucker landed on a kelp leaf and wriggled its way underneath. Desiring a picture, I gently turned the leaf over ... so as not to startle the tiny creature back into its bumblebee-like flight ... only to discover two more already under there, attached to the fronds by their suckerlike fins and hanging there upside down like tiny aquatic bats.
I have long known that lumpsuckers are mostly found at night ... and never knew where they went during the daylight hours. I think I just found out. I gently returned the leaf to its original position ... sans pictures so as not to disturb them ... and continued my dive. As I made my way back to the entry I noticed several more of the tiny fish repeating the same behavior ... landing on a kelp frond and wriggling their way ... upside down ... underneath it.
Sleep welll my tiny friends ... I'll be back to visit some other time.
I completed my dive just past 7 AM ... now fully daylight. A few cars had joined mine in the parking lot, and I was greeted by other divers I knew ... gearing up for an "early morning" dive. I had just time for breakfast before Peter arrived for our dive together ... down to see who was out and about on the "day" shift.
The weather was still holding ... the predicted storm had skirted north of us. We could've dived Hood Canal after all. But, honestly, I was quite content with "Plan B" ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
