Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Diving my Backyard.

I didn't expect much from from the waters next to my house. Less then two minutes away it would just be too easy. I had a feeling it would be rocks for about 10 feet and then barren mud to unreachable depths. I was right about the rocks. But boy was I wrong about the barren part!

I always get some weird stares when I put put on my suit and pull out my long fins and camera. So it was a comfort when my Head slips into the water. The weight of the stares lifted. The water is unbelievably clear. The rocky shore keeping silt to a minimum. I follow a drain pipe for about 12' until it abruptly ends. A few fish and crab are using it as an artificial reef. I spit my snorkel out and dive down. My decent scares a flounder out of its hiding spot, leaving a trail of dust in its speedy escape.

As I venture deeper. I follow the patterns of kelp and seaweed. Being used to Hawaii's waters it took me a while to understand what I was seeing. I was at the surface and could see the bottom at 25' down! A few dives later was seeing starfish from the surface at 40'
The next few hours whent on like this. Great vis and a lot of flounder sightings.

Yellow fin sole? "limanda aspera" or english sole "parophyrs vetulus"?


Down on one dive I had my head buried in the sand looking for flounders. At around 2 minutes I lifted my head up to notice this curious fish less then 6 inches from me. I swung my camera around and tried to capture it. However Contractions don't tend well to photography and was not able to get any acceptable shots.


On my way back in to shore I noticed the hugest jellyfish I've seen.


I followed it for twenty minutes learning its behavior. I discovered that it followed a pattern. It would stay near the surface for 3-4 min and then dive down to the sea floor and make a circling pattern in the current. After 5-10 min it would pulse back to the surface and dive again.




I really wanted to capture a photo of the Jelly near the sea floor with a crab or fish in the foreground but I couldn't grab the opportunity.


same with the spiders: A high shutter around 180-200 with aperture around F9, one strobe firing at 1/2 power allowed for a dark background with surface highlights.



By the time I was back on dry land my feet were numb from the cold, But I was stoked that so much life resides so close to home!

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