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Monthly Archives: May 2015

Folly Cove – 24 May 2015

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Second day of Memorial day long weekend. We hit the Folly Cove at low tide, not my favorite, but once you hit the water you forget about all the pain associated with getting in the water, until it is time to come out of the water, ugh. The positive side is much less surface swim to the left wall, you can almost walk to decent point.

First dive we were on the left wall, the visibility was not as great as you would expect from the calmness of the water, I would say in the 10 ft region, average. Saw a few nudibranchs, some were new to me. A more pleasing sight was their egg ribbons and how beautifully they ornament the tunicates with their eggs.

On the way back we came across a very excited searaven with a deep red color. I sufficiently harassed this pretty cool dude with my camera before we headed back. IT was tough to choose from all the photos I had of this one, searavens are always very photogenic, from all angles.

For the second dive we hit the reef in the middle. You should take 25-30 degree bearing from the center right of the cove, I was more on the right so I missed it and had to navigate back to find it. Our purpose was to find the oceanpout which has been seen around there recently. But apparently, based on other divers report, it chose to hang out at the left wall this time and we didn’t see it in the first dive, damn. Nevertheless it was a nice dive, completing the sculpin family sightings for the weekend with the cute longhorn sculpin we saw on the sand.

Completing two awesome dives at awesome weather. The low tide entrance and exit exhausted the hell out of me. I need a bumper sticker “I dove Folly Cove at low tide”. Last part of the diveathon, tomorrow Peirce Island.

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Back Beach – 23 May 2015

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At low tide and southwest winds Back Beach is one of the good options for easy dive. The water was extremely calm and the visibility was amazing, around 25-30 ft. Dan, Jason and I had two nice dives. The first dive we entered at the left side and stayed close to the left (I think the bearing was 30 degrees). It was kelp forest. Definitely an annoying situation because so many things can hide from you under those kelp and you can pick up only so many kelp. However as I was venturing around those kelp I found a little swim-through formed by big boulders. I really wanted to swim through it, but I was scared to disturb the stuff at the ceiling so I opt out. But it was cool looking.

Second dive we kept at the rock-sand interface, which took us around the shore. We came across a big and probably old short horn sculpin. We did not let him go before poor thing was sufficiently harassed by the photographers 🙂

The regular inhabitants were back to the shore, there were plenty flounder and skate, a few gunnels and even a shanny. The nudibranchs are slowly disappearing from the scene, even though probably we will continue to see a few here and there until july. The interesting thing was that we saw pipefish and hake, which I am used to seeing later in the summer. The weather has been weird and apparently it has been confusing the fishies as well. 🙂

Overall nice diving at Bach Beach. I still need to figure out the best navigation at this site where I can avoid the kelp forest and meet some big boulders. I know they exist around.

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Folly Cove – 3 May 2015

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I have been lazy and waited for so long to write about my dive at Folly Cove two weeks ago.

With diving the day before and having to carry all the gear over the rocks exhausted me so much. As it happens every year I realize that I need to work out, those tanks are not getting lighter.

We had two dives at folly cove, this was the first double dive of the year. One dive at left wall and one dive at right reef. They were both beautiful dives. We saw the usual occupants of the cove, skate, flounder, horseshoe crab. On top of that of course many different kinds of nudibranchs, zillions of mysid shrimp babies, and really tiny grubbies.

After coming home and looking at the pictures I realized there were plenty “pregnant” skeleton shrimps photobombing my frames. Those creatures are cute, not knowing what to do with themselves, just swing back and forth.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”29″ gal_title=”3 May 2015 – Folly Cove”]

Old Garden Beach – 2 May 2015

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The weather on saturday, against the predictions, was really beautiful. In the morning the wind was calm, the sun came out fairly early. Original plan was Bass Rocks but the water had started to roll in so we ended up at Old Garden Beach. I cannot object to that, OGB is always beautiful, and with its ease of setting up and getting to the water it is easily one of the favorites. Plus, I haven’t been to Cape Ann area for a while so any site would be good to explore.

We did a out-and-back route with 30 degree bearing. In the summer time this bearing is pretty happening, you would see all kinds of crabs, pipefish, even sea robin or torpedo ray. But in a winter diving swimming to the reef over the bare sand felt quite long. Finally we reached the reef and, man, life was happening there!

My buddies know me now, they often lose me over a big boulder. When I see a boulder I swim to it like there is a magnetic force. I position across a face of the rock and just stare at the details. You end up seeing a lot of little creatures, you would miss if you just swam by it. But, maybe just as much as the search for the critters, I like to enjoy the all the variety of colors and textures that come together on a rock. I like to capture them in a frame but it never does the justice.

In this dive there were a lot of colors, textures and creatures. Many different kinds of nudis, as expected this time of the year. It was fun to go over the photos afterwards, I would find hidden gems in most photos, other random creatures getting into the frame. There were also a few fish around, a few skates, a rock gunnel and a cutest little lumpfish was spotted.

I realized that repetitive diving at Peirce Island messed up my perception. Close to halfway of the dive, as I feel some surge, I would freak out thinking that the current had started and I should be heading back. Then I would remind myself that I am in safe waters of Cape Ann, I have air, I am shallow, I could enjoy the dive. 🙂

Overall it was a beautiful dive for me. When I am dry I am aware how much I love diving. But some dives, like this days dive, make me think that even I don’t do enough justice to how beautiful it is under the surface and I am so lucky to be able to get wet regularly.

Dive time: 70 min

Max depth: 43 ft

Water temp: 43-46 F

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Peirce Island – 25 April 2015

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[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”27″ gal_title=”25 April 2015 – Peirce Island night”]

Addiction is a really bad thing, consuming you and hurting everyone around. Well, unless it is addiction of diving. If that’s the case you just become a happier person, come together with friends more often and enjoy and share awesome moments under water.

This weekend, I don’t remember why, we were not planning to dive. Woke up in the morning, planning to have a relaxing day. Next thing we knew we were driving to Peirce Island for a night dive with ever-dive-ready friend Dan.

We were dying to try the new Sola blue light we bought. There were a lot of reports out there about the tropical creatures glowing under UV/blue light, due to the fluorescent proteins these creature have. But there were no reports on the fluorescence of the New England waters. Were they non-existent. Is so why? What made some creatures to have this fluorescent protein (mostly green fluorescent protein, GFP)? And how did these properties expand to cold waters of northeast?

In tropical waters most corals and anemone fluoresce, as well as some shrimp, fish or some invertebrates like nudibranchs. If our nudibranchs fluoresce our best change is Peirce Island, where the nudis are huge and very picturesque. So, that’s why we hit the road.

Unfortunately, I found myself missing one BCD :/. My devastation was eliminated by Bert, who donated his BCD in expense of his enjoyment of underwater that day.  So this dive is dedicated to Bert!

I must say I enjoyed the night dive at this site more than the day dive. I found that it was so much easier to detect life around, with our focus compacted on the lighted area alone. Of course there were nudibranchs and lots and lots of egg ribbons. But tonight my focus was on the gunnels. I am so happy to see fish again. And I never expected to see so many. Both Dan and I saw many gunnels ranging from baby to pretty big ones. There were also many grubbies. I wonder if these guys came to munch on the egg ribbons the nudibranchs recently curated at this site? There must be something out there, which would love to eat these ribbons.

Not noticing how fast the time passed by with all the nudis and gunnels and the grubbies, we had hit the wall, hit the bottom of it and headed back. To our surprise the current started strong much earlier than we expected, so we really had to kick it with everything we had. Finally decided to surface and try swimming at the surface. It was a good decision, since it was much better at the surface. Though I lost a fin during all this crazy  kicking. One thing Dan mentioned that the flag he was carrying was really pulling him throughout the dive. So note to self: Do not take the flag with you at the Peirce Island, anchor it near the shore and let the boaters know there are divers down there.

About the fluorescence? Well, I did not observe and GFP down there, sadly reporting. The nudibranchs, frilled anemone or the northern cerianthids were also not glowing, I was really surprised by that. However, there is a lot of red fluorescence. The algae, the sea weeds had a deep red glow in them. My camera setup was not proper so I don’t have any photos of those. But I would like to try. One thing was cool to see, at the beam of the light I could see small red spherical creatures, glowing bright red. I am not done with fluoro diving yet. I ordered the necessary adjustments to be able to visualize them and photo them. Soon…

We had a little adrenaline rush, but left with the memories of an amazing diving at Peirce Island. Once again.

 

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