Wow, what a couple of dives we had at Loblolly Point that day! We thought Folly Cove was nudi fest and Loblolly Cove blew our mind. There were nudibranchs everywhere and the conditions were darn good.
Based on my last 6 years of diving in NE I would say Okenia ascidicola (write that down 5 times) is a rare nudi. I have seen one few years back, only one I saw and my camera had issues earlier in the dive and I kicked myself since then. But this year, not only we saw more, basically they were throwing them on our faces! Especially at Loblolly Point we saw a bunch of these nudis and a ton of their eggs. Their beautiful, thick, white spiral egg masses were everywhere you look.
In addition to O. ascidicola, A. proxima (or Onchidoris muricata) and F. bostoniensis were the most abundant of all the nudis. F. bontoniensis were actually just flying all over the water column.
In addition I could find D. fragilis, O. bilamellata, P. dubia, D. frondosus and of course F. verucosa. Towards the end of the second dive I came across Cuthona viridis, which I think was a first for me.
In addition to the nudis, which are the main creatures occupy my attention, I did notice ridiculous numbers of baby rock gunnels. Maybe, unless they get eaten to nothing, this summer may be the year of gunnels 🙂
Buddies: Bert P, Dan H, Jason F, Amy N, Todd B.
