I'm sitting in Ozona, Florida, at a VRBO located within a half mile of where my dad kept our 17ft outboard cabin cruiser at the former Joe's Fish Camp for many years. I'm eagerly looking forward to a day of diving with "Tanksalot" diving boat out of Clearwater, Florida today. The diving will be on my old diving stomping grounds from the time I was certified to dive in 1967 until I finished my Master's Degree in Engineering from the University in South Florida in 1977 and moved to California to go to work for Hewlett Packard.
Here's a one more time selection of my favorite diving photos from the great trip to God's Pocket off the NE corner of Vancouver Island the week of March 24-30. As always, I've put some of my favorites in this blog, more can be seen at:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VE5Uqb6XxpVjiLps7
Anemones on Palm Kelp
Open, filter feeding, Basket Star
New, for me, Nudibranchs, common name still TBD...
Because I have to include a beautiful Ling Cod!
The first Irish Lord sculpin I photoed. I found Irish Lords as irresistible as subjects as I do the Cabezons (the largest sculpin) in California.
Donna wanted light through kelp, so here is my best attempt.
Adult male Wolf Eel
Adult female Wolf Eel that shared the same den with the male above.
Many thanks to Mike Williams for entertaining us by giving the Wolf Eels sea urchins to munch.
The next five photos are from the only night dive I made on the trip, in God's Pocket Dive Resort's cove.
By far the largest White Edged Dirona nudibranch I've ever encountered, the size of a baseball, 5 times bigger than the ones I've seen in Monterey and Carmel.
Kelp Crabs are always good, here I got his good side.
Hooded Nudibranch, the first and only one I've ever seen. I was underweighted for being shallow and I struggled mightily in the dark to get this shot...
Red Rock Crabs are cool, too.
Beautiful shrimp, about 2 inches long, name TBD...
We had great visibility, calm seas, sunny days, fantastic diving. You can see trees up on the surface above the diver in this shot, it was really cool to look up and see trees!
Two small sculpin, the one in the foreground is new to me, TBD...
This is one of my favorites because it catches the magic of God's Pocket in one picture. Look at the density of invertebrate life on the bottom, then, Kelp Greenlings are very common there, getting a good picture of the shy fish, like this male, is non-trivial, finally, look at the trees you can see above the surface of the water far above, stunning.
A small horned nudibranch, maybe two inches long, not bad considering I was shooting with my wide angle Tokina 10-17 mm Fisheye lens....
I love taking pictures of Red Irish Lords. They are very patient with divers.
A bit of a surprise for me was that there were fewer rockfish at our dive sites around God's Pocket than at many of our dive sites in Monterey and especially, Carmel Bay. But there was a nice variety including some species new to me. China Rockfish are common in California but this beauty posed very cooperatively.
I love this shot of a Black Eyed Goby with a "grove" of Orange Sea Cucumbers.
I can't begin to express how deeply thrilled and relieved I was to encounter lots of beautiful, mature, Sunflower Stars at God's Pocket! Sunflower Stars used to be literally everywhere you looked at many dive sites in Monterey Bay but I haven't seen a single living one since the devastating Sea Star Wasting plague came through in 2013. They are locally extinct in Monterey and Carmel Bays and I believe, in the Channel Islands as well. Sunflower Sea Stars are aggressive predators and one of their prey are sea urchins. Sea urchin numbers exploded following the Sea Star Wasting plague and decimated our magnificent kelp forests in Monterey and Carmel, leaving "urchin barrens". Kelp beds are just starting to recover now, I think thanks to a combination of maturing knobby sea stars and hungry sea otters eating fully grown sea urchins....Hopefully Sunflower Stars will repopulate the west coast soon...
Finally, on my last dive on this fabulous God's Pocket dive trip put together by Richard Salas, I encountered a Puget Sound King Crab. Really cool, really confident. Including his legs and claws he was well over a foot across.
Guy Foster with long strobe arms recommended and championed by Richard Salas. I've kept my strobe arms short to keep my dive camera rig manageable for the increasingly rare occasions that I make shore dives, especially at my favorite shore dive site, Otter Cove, with its very heavy surf grass and kelp in very shallow water at the "beach". After admiring Guy's great results, I'm going to have to ante up for some long strobe arms...
Guy getting photos of a patient Red Irish Lord.
Below are a few surface pictures from our God's Pocket trip, for more, please go to:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TZeByCSChCTRZbJX9
God's Pocket's great dive boat with its wondrous oh so easy to re-board with diver elevator in the foreground, the beautiful resort in the background. What a great week of diving!
One of several beautiful sunsets we enjoyed at God's Pocket thanks to the incredibly wonderful weather we had the week we were there.
Captain Dan generously extended his day after three dive outings to also run the boat's wonderful diver elevator to lower us in and pick us back up after our night dives at God's Pocket cove.
Yes, I would say our dive group had a plethora of dive cameras!
We had a great week at God's Pocket. Richard Salas pulls together a diverse group of fun divers to hang out with.
The wonderful staff of God's Pocket that made this an incredible experience with unforgettable meals and dives!
Hey Charlie, all your wonderful images make me want to go back right now! You saw so much and recorded it in good fashion and I must admit I am happy about the future purchase of long arms. So wonderful to have you and Guy along to my favorite place on this water planet.
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