Solo Dive Planned on the Ledge of Turtles, but I apparently swam right by it, twice.

Late getting to the beach, so I had to hustle to get in the water by 9:30, before the lifeguards arrived.  I made it, but I was not ready for the dive.  I was cold when I got in and I stayed cold the whole time.
  

 The visibility was poor, but there was plenty of life.  I got pictures of this Juvenile Blue angelfish,

 then one of an inactive Spotted Goatfish

then a second picture of the same fish as its coloring went from inactive to active as it swam away from me.

I must have gotten off my bearing while taking pictures because I did not find the Ledge of Turtles or any of my usual landmarks.  So I just swam around.






I came up on Sharks Rock from the North and found a rather large Nurse Shark napping in its Lee. I only got this one picture of the shark's eye, as it raced away once I triggered the strobe.  

From Shark's Rock,  I went South to the Nipple Rock and then headed West to the Ledge of Turtles, but somehow I missed it.  I did spot this little insect looking thing along the bottom and got a couple of shots. I still have not identified it.  

I got pictures of a Juvenile Blue Tang among some Staghorn Coral,

as well as a Foureye Butterflyfish, but I never found the Ledge of Turtles.

I went West to the beach after barely an hour and a half.  I was still cold and decided against a second dive.

Solo Diving the Ledge of Turtles with the Canon 5d Mk III

       The cable connection from the camera to the stobe was corroded, so I cleaned it out, but that meant that the cable and the housing back were wet and needed to dry.   I decided to set up the Mk III and took it out instead of the Mk II.  Seemed to work fine.  Got some good shots.

      As usual, I swam out to the rock pile and headed off on a 125 degree bearing, but I spotted a Bandtail Puffer and gave chase.  Got some good shots, but I lost my bearing and missed the Ledge of Turtles.   I'm not sure where I was diving, but I got some good shots.

   Found a Brown Horseshoe Worm and got a nice picture.

      Also found a Banded Coral Shrimp and got a nice if upside down picture.

       Saw a Squirrelfish in the Staghorn Coral, as well as a French Grunt or two.

I had worn shorts on the first dive, but change to long pants for the second dive.  They kept me warmer and being warmer may have gotten me to a 2 hour dive.  I was breathing better, primarily because I was not shivering.  I went in off the Pelican and headed SE.  I went maybe 2/3 rds of the way out to the Eastern Ledge and came West towards the beach.  I was hoping to find the Ledge of Turtles, but did not.  I came in right on Tower 20 and shifted just a little to come out at the main entry.

Got a shot of this Sharpnose Puffer.

This Intermediate Gray Angelfish.

A Gray Snapper

An Atlantic Spadefish

 

and this Sheepshead Porgy.


Total dive time was 121 minutes.  This was the first two hour dive since the New Year.

Two Solo Dives on the Ledge of Turtles and in front of the Pelican Grand

I got to the beach about 8:30 am, geared up and got in.  I descended as soon as I had my flag attached and my mask washed out.  Found a small grappling anchor and short bit of line.  I picked it up and went looking for the Rock Pile.  Dragged a large rock to add to the pile and hid the anchor in the rock pile to pick up on the way back.  The I headed off at 130 degrees.  Tried to take a picture, but the strobe was not working. Reset the aperture and got some pictures.

I see a lot of this Yellow Sponge Zoanthid, lately.  I don't remember seeing it so much last Summer or Fall.

Also see a number of these Foureye Butterflyfish

But not so many of these Trumpetfish.  I like the way they go vertical and pretend to be a sea rod.  Must work sometimes.  They all do it.  






      I continued swimming out to the round symmetrical brain coral.  I remembered seeing it, but I could not recall where.  Finally, I happened to look up the rise and saw the Large Mid-way rock and Turtle Rock.  I swam up to them and then swam on a 120 bearing to the Ledge of Turtles.  Shot some more pictures of the usual stuff:

 Spotted Goatfish,

Porkfish

Spanish Grunts

Squirrelfish

Juvenile Yellowtail Damselfish

 Yellowtail Damselfish

and Orangespotted Filefish.







Nothing new like the juvenile trunkfish I found on the Knoll, but of course the visibility was really bad today and I may have missed all sorts of things.  Swam back to the rock pile, picked up my anchor and swam in to the beach.  

       I warmed up pretty quickly in the sun.  It was actually hot on the beach.  I was ready to dive within an hour.  I decided not to take the camera on my second dive.  The visibility was too bad and the non-functioning strobe sealed the deal.  I walked around to the Pelican to avoid the Lifeguard and then swam due East to the Ledge.  Killed some time hanging on the reef just before the sand, letting the clock run past 90 minutes.  Then off to the beach.  Might have made a third dive, but I got worried about decompression issues and decided to work that all out before making 3 dives.

Diving the Big Coral Knoll with Luis

      I met Luis at the beach behind Tower 17.  I had invited Sue Chalmers, but she did not appear.  Sky was clear and the day was sunny.  We geared up and got in.  Swam out to the blocks and descended a little West and South of the blocks.  The swim buoy moves with the wind and surface current, which makes it a poor triangulation point.  But we found them.





We went up the gunsight to the Cigar Rock and then drifted a bit South and ended up at the split coral head.






      On the way to the Coral Head and just a bit East of the Cigar Rock, I found an Octopus.  It was secure in a hole and only the eye was peeking out.  I tried to play with it by wiggling my fingers.  When I got my hand close to it, it shot water at me from its siphon.  Scared me and I jumped back.  When I calmed down, I continued East to the Fish Camp Rocks, then went North to the Big Coral Knoll.

  On the Knoll, I spotted a Juvenile Yellow Tunkfish.  As I was approaching it for a picture, a Damselfish chased it off.  I followed it to another coral head in which it hid.  I got some pictures, but not really good ones, just as good as I could get. I backed off, hoping he would come out, but he stayed put.

      While I was waiting on the Juvenile Yellow Trunkfish, though, I spotted a Juvenile Smooth Trunkfish just 3 yards to the North.  I swam over then behind the little white spotted black tennis ball until it settled down and I got some pictures of it.

 We were both getting low on air, so we headed back.  We went to the Perpendicular Rocks, then headed SW to the beach.  Along the way I found a Doctorfish with a Cymothoid Isopod attached to it just below and behind the mouth.

      As we were heading back, I found that we were close to 2 hours dive time.  I ended the dive at 113 minutes and 212 psi, which, even if I could have accessed it all, would probably have just gotten me to two hours.  Still, its the longest dive I've had so far in 2014.  Such a change from Summer.

      We surfaced in a rain storm.  The sky was completely overcast.  We decided to skip the second dive.  I was cold and unlikely to warm up in the rain.  So we cleaned up and I drove home.  By the time I unloaded the truck, however, it was sunny outside.  

Diving the Yankee Clipper Euro Jacks with Luis and Leo

We met at the parking lot at 8:30 am, geared up, hiked across the beach and got in the water.  The tide was still relatively high, so we finned up and swam out 20 minutes to the Jacks.  We descended and I discovered that although I had formatted the 32 GB card, I had forgotten to put it in the camera.  Water was calm and visibility was good.  It was a good dive, but because I had not put the card in the camera at home, because I had not taken a test shot at the truck before we got in the water, I have no pictures of this first dive.

Fortunately I carry a spare card, as well as other gear, and fortunately Leo wanted to make a second dive, so I got another chance.  This time I made sure there was a card in the camera, albeit only a 2 GB card.  Still, it was so much better than nothing.

     I got several shots of this Yellow Sand Ray, but I really liked this one.  We had descended over the algae and swam out underwater and this little ray was cruising the algae.

     Surprisingly, everything worked and we swam right to the Jacks.  I got this shot of a Blue Tang near a small pile of 4 jacks several yards to the West of the main grouping.

     Porcupinefish are quite timid and will usually swim the other way if a diver approaches, but I held my breath to avoid the sound of my bubbles and drifted up to this one.  I got pretty close, but would have liked to have been in front of him.

There are lots of Trumpetfish on the Jacks and the little guy to the right is what they usually look like. There is one that frequents the Jacks, however, that has a blue face.   I also got a picture of that fish on this dive.  It's not the best picture of the faced, but you can nonetheless tell it is blue.

      On the first dive I had spotted a Peacock Flounder.  This fellow had a Cymothoid Isopod attached.  The Cymothoids are not parasites, who eat their hosts, but rather attach themselves near the host's mouth and eat food floating in the water without damaging the host.  They begin life as free-swimming males about 1/8th inch long.  Once they attach to a host, however, they lose the ability to swim and will remain with the host for life.



      The small males who attach to a host with a female already in place will mate with that female. When the female dies, the male will change into a female and wait for male to join her.

       I often see Cymothoid Isopods on Doctorfish or Ocean Surgeonfish.  This was an exception.

      I got a pretty good shot of a Spotted Goatfish with his barbels extended, searching for food.

This is a little Three-spot Damselfish.  There are many of these along the Jacks.

Cold Solo Dive off Tower 17

      Winds have been out of the East and in the 10 - 15 knott range, so I was not expecting very good visibility. I decided to shoot supermacro; added a +10 diopter to the 100mm macro lens.  The tide was still high when I got in and I had to put fins on to go through the trench, but then on the sandbar, I was skimming bottom as I tried to negotiate the surf.

      I swam out to the swim buoy and descended.  I was not planning on going far on the reef, but had planned to spend time going over the old Nursery area.  Visibility was terrible:  less than 3 feet over sand and about 8 feet on the reef.  I did not find much vegetation and very little life in the Old Nursery, so I went up on to the reef.

I'm not sure what this is.  It could be the sprout on a sea rod, but I don't know.

This Seaweed Blenny came out to watch.  He seemed to like the strobe.

 This is a Knobby Sea Rod.  The knobs fold in on themselves for protection whenever it gets bumped.

 Venus Sea Fan.

 Yellow Sponge Zoanthid

 Neon Goby.

This is a closeup of the tip of a baby Nurse Shark's tail.  Just this six inches were sticking out from under a coral head and the baby was not moving.  I probably could not have gotten a picture of the baby had it come out because of the diopter, but at least I could have gotten a closeup of the baby's eye.






The warmest bottom temperature was 73 degrees.  The entire dive lasted 106 minutes.  I was cold when I got out and my SAC rate was .51 ft3/minute.