Red Diving Hood

What a perfect day to be in the water. I don’t think I ever wanted to feel the cold water rushing into my wetsuit. When it did, it felt soooo good today. Even early hours of the morning the heat was hitting hard. The two round walk to the Halibut Point entry point did not help, either.

Finally, three of us (Bert, Mike and me) geared up and entered the water. Quickly took even heading towards north and submerged into green water. The water on the surface was quite warm (no data as I forgot my computer) but going through two thermoclines made me forget about the heat above the surface. Later I learn that the temperature at depth was 44F.

As we cut through the thermoclines the visibility also cleared up significantly. I can easily say it was around 30-40 ft at the bottom. Saw few flounders, one longhorn sculpin and  one shorthorn sculpin. Bert reported a big tautog, which I missed :(.

Overall beautiful dive, as usual in Halibut Point. Can’t wait for the weekend to come and it will come in 2 days, yay!!!

Buddies: Bert, Mike S.

62ft, 44F, 50min, 15-40ft viz

We had a good stretch of amazing visibility at the shores and out, last few weeks. I was wondering if we would still be lucky this week, after some rainy and mucky days. And our dive at Halibut Point showed that, nope, the good viz was mostly replaced by the highly fuzzy waters in shallow waters.

Luckily, below the thermocline the view opened up to nice 15-20 ft viz, which we had to pay for with the frozen toes. But still not bad, we almost got used to 46F waters.

The usuals were out today. I say, if you have been looking for radiated shanny or scarlet psollus Halibut Point is where you should be. Almost every dive you are guaranteed to see these creatures. Again, almost every dive here we see a sea raven, or two, or short-horn sculpin, which was the case for this dive. Sometimes, we see something exciting like a torpedo ray, goosefish or an ocean pout, this time it wasn’t our lucky dive. Also, we hope for a wolffish, because you can’t blame the dreamers 😉 .

We had a good an hour of dive, most of it below 30ft due to much better visibility. Interesting enough I didn’t see any nudibranchs this dive, just few bundles of eggs. Is it time for them to disappear now? 🙁

59 ft 57min 46F, 3-25 ft visibilty

Buddies: Dan Hedrick & Jason Feick

radiated shanny

This week we were at Halibut Point, once again, for a single dip. The weather was pretty good, cloudy but not cold, around 60s. The wind was mostly from south so perfect for hitting North facing Halibut Point, one of our favorites.

Despite the mostly calm surface the visibility was quite poor, 5-10ft, down to 40ft, then it opened up to 15-20 ft. While, observing poor visibility at shallower depths suggests it might be the best to head down as fast as you can, but the nudis, the treat of the season, mostly inhabit 20+-10 ft depth, so you just end up taking your sweet lovin’ time to get to the “green”.

There wasn’t as many nudis as you would expect, it might be due to strong winds hitting the north shore few days back. Though I saw plenty of D. fragilis and D. coronata of varying sizes. I actually saw the biggest D. fragilis I have ever saw, I will just exaggerate and say it was quarter to half an inch length. While J. Shine suggests they get up to 1.5 inches I was never lucky enough to see them as big. (I am tempted to make ‘J. Shine’ italic 😛 ).

In addition to D. fragilis I also saw a few F. verrucosa, just bunch of them on a rock, nowhere else. There were also a few bushy backs (D. frondosus) around that I could detect, but they were so tiny. At such times I miss Peirce Island dives…

It is cool to see different behavior of the creatures we generally see just munching up whatever is around. Mating, laying eggs, fighting for territory, etc, just observing how different life forms go around their days. Towards the end of the dive I saw a pair of tiny D. fragilis mating. Nudibranchs are hermaphrodites. They contain both male and female genitalia. When, finally they find a mate they position themselves anti-parallel genitalia side facing each other and they fertilize each other. With these tiny nudis it was really hard to see what they were doing, but coming home and looking at the photos confirmed my suspicion. They were totally doing it. Unfortunately, I suck as paparazzi photographer, I could not get the “details” of “doing it”. 🙂

I was wondering, as hermaphrodites, if nudis could inseminated themselves when they cannot find a mate. This behavior is observed in some other animals as well as flat worms. But, apparently, nudis need a mate to procreate.

It was a pretty good dive at Halibut Point, despite the low viz. The fish were also there, saw a rock gunnel, winter flounder, skate, radiated shanny and bunch of cunners. There were a few decent sized lobsters. The anemone were all closed but the blood stars and scarlet psolus were all having their breakfasts.

Next week no dive for me :(. It is quite unlike of my birthday week, as I have been planing Florida trip for my birthday since my certification. But this time, trying to correlate with my sisters schedule I had to postpone my Florida treat for two weeks. Just can’t wait for it!!!

50ft, 65min, 48F, 5-10 ft viz opening to 15-20 at depth

Dive buddies: Bert Perry and Jason Feick

radiated shanny

I am so grateful for the awesome dive buddies I have, who helped me, so that I could do this dive. I do have some issues with my drysuit, that’s why I didn’t do many dives this year. The suit does not fit me properly, the booties do not stay on my feet, and I cannot reach to my own feet to fix the fins. I really need help getting the fins on and even getting the straps of the fins around the ankle weights to secure the fins. Yes, probably a little hazardous diving but sometimes I just can’t help it, I really need to dive. And my great dive buddies are there to patiently help me get in the water.

The weather was expected to be awesome and the past week was not too harsh on the ocean so we planned a dive, ambitiously at Halibut Point. Carrying the gear through that route to the rocks then gearing and hopping over the rocks to get to the water requires too much ATP (energy currency of cells) but it is all worth it! Every single time!

The water was flat calm. We jumped in, freezing water on the face with a little than hoped for visibility. Soon after we started descending we started to see all the tiniest creatures and bunch of nudibranchs, most of them in decent size. I was happily taking photos at around 20-25ft with many nudis around my buddy summoned me towards the deeper parts. Once you get below ~40ft the dive transforms into a space exploration  trip in another planet. Just amazing atmosphere with much better visibility.

I love taking photos at shallower depths where most nudis hang out. But I love diving at these deeper end of this site, no photo can depict the feeling of it, I don’t even try to anymore. I can only recommend you to go see it for yourself.

So, yes it was a beautiful dive. We saw plenty of nudis, at the deeper end the sand was covered with northern cerianthids. The frilled anemones were scattered around. I generally find them boring as photo subjects but I saw a really cool colored one, with dark gray and balckish hue, I even quacked about it :). There was also a big northern red, sitting on a rock. There weren’t many fish around but Dan showed us a shorthorn sculpin. Apparently there was a red searaven as well, didn’t get to see that one. It was also the first time I saw two spider crabs mating, a horrific view 😛

The thermocline was very drastic. Towards the end of the dive, I was ascending slowly following the terrain, at some point above my head I saw a layer of blackish stain sort of thing, almost like a trail of squid ink. As I went through it I realized that it was the thermocline. That was pretty cool and a little disorienting once you got into the blurriness of the thermocline.

I am so glad that we decided to dive this weekend and were not scared of the long walk. My body aches all over, still, after 2 days, but still I would do it again.

50 min, 67 ft, 35F (corrected after conflicting data from different divers), ~20-25ft viz at depth

Dive buddies: Bert, Dan, J. Kenney

It sounds like it was a great weekend of diving for many of us. Facebook kept us busy by all the shares of abundant marine life with more variety than I have heard or seen last few years I have been diving here. We have been getting reports of lumpfish and goosefish almost every week. The dogfish, which I thought was just a myth, have been seen schooling around the wreck of Patriot. I think this has been a great summer for diving and is still going on!

For our adventures we were at Halibut Point on sunday and of course it did not disappoint. The first dive we came across a big torpedo ray laying on the rocks, sleeping. It must have been tired of the attention from all the divers at Folly Cove, but it did not run far enough. I could get fairly close to it for some macro shots, while my dive buddies were thinking I was crazy for doing that.

While seeing a torpedo ray during a dive is enough to make it an awesome dive, the big ass ocean pout resting under a rock took it to another level. It was the biggest pout I have seen, not that I saw very many. I wish it would come out to show its whole beauty but unfortunately we could only get a glimpse of the big pouty lips.

For the rest of the dive we saw two shorthorn sculpins and a searaven, which are always welcomed to show up.

Second dive was mostly a solo dive, since I lost my buddies soon after we descended. I must say I had a great time cruising around at the ashy depths of Halibut Point by myself, feeling the freedom. During that dive I came across a shorthorn sculpin, a searaven, a few hake and a beautiful cod.

The water was pretty cold at 50 F at depth. The vizibility started quite bad at around 5 ft then gradually increased as we passed through a few thermoclines. At 60 ft it was around 15 -20 ft. Great day of diving at Halibut Point, I would do it again any time 😀

Buddies: Bert Perry, Dan Hedrick, Jason Feick, Todd Boothroyd

Dive 1: 50F 68 ft 58 min

Dive 2: 50 F 64 ft 52 min

Halibut Point always provides a beautiful dive. Though it comes with a price, all body pain for the the following few days! I don’t think it is easy for anyone to haul all those things we put on ourselves during the dives for 300 meters, then put those on and get to the water hopping on the big boulders while trying not to slip.

But it must worth it, since we do it as often as the weather allows.

The dive in Halibut Point starts with big boulders with a lot to look around but my favorite part is the atmosphere below 60 ft. It gets quite monochromatic, big smooth boulders everywhere but everything looks quite flat. There is something that makes it quite eerie. It feels like another planet. It feels like you may encounter something really cool any moment now.

We had a single dive and it was quite awesome. There were many different kinds of nudibranchs, including one I have seen for the first time, Aeolidia papollosa. Currently this is my favorite nudi. It looks really pretty and it is pretty cool, as in it has a slightly different defense mechanism. It secretes some mucus to protect itself form the sting of the anemone it is munching on. While this mucus is specific to that anemone.

Other nudis I saw were O. bilamellata, F. verrucosa, E. exigus, D. coronata, C. concinna, O. muricata, F. bontoniensis, F. gracilis (?). That’s quite a bit, huh?

Again during this dive we saw many skeleton shrimps all over the place. However, it looked like the shrimps with eggs were populated together. I wonder if this behavior is an adaptation to increase the probability of fertilization.

Oh, also butt loads of S. psolus. everywhere, eating!

And a northern red anemone in the middle of nothingness 🙂

New nudis, new observations. Another successful dive at Halibut Point. Until next time…

72 Mins, 62ft, 36-42F, 20-30ft viz

Dive buddy: Bert

Halibut Point is one of my favorite dive sites in Cape Ann. The dive involves declining big boulders leading to muddy bottom at ~65-70 feet. There is always some cool marine life, regulars, cunner are schooling pollocks, always cool to see searaven and sculpin, or good surprises like ocean pout or goosefish. It is an awesome lobstering site ( I could get one today even with the late season), and good site to observe some invertebrates like frilled and northern red anemone and scarlet psollus, if you are lucky to dive at lunch time.

The topography is always very cool, the big boulders providing a lot of crevices (lobsters!) going down to gravelly and then muddy bottom. Below 45-50 feet it becomes really spooky due to low light and dusty environment. Which makes it a good option on a Halloween day.

We hit the site at around low tide. Low tide is not much of an issue at Halibut since we figured out a safe way to enter the water. After a few gear problems, all got fixed, we finally started our dive.

The dive was pretty awesome. Before we hit the spooky bottom we came across a really big short-horn sculpin. It was fairly cooperative with my camera, I could get some frames of his nice dome-like eyes.

We were lucky that it was lunch time that we saw plenty scarlet psolus and one northern red anemone. It is always a delight to see those. The mud bottom looks so mysterious to me and I always want to swim beyond and explore further because it always makes me think that there must be something really cool hiding around. One day I will find a wolffish sitting there, waiting for me! This time it was only a field of northern cerianthids and surprisingly a pipefish!

It was a really good dive with all the cool finds and schooling pollocks at Halibut Point before the weather got cold. I am happy that winds finally cooperated and allowed us to dive in one of our favorite sites.

66ft, 62 min, 50F, 15-20 ft

shorthorn sculpin

For this years Great Annual Fish Count we did two dives at Halibut Point in Rockport. This site is rather challenging due to the long walk to the dive site through narrow foot path through the woods, and the rocky entry, which may get slippery at low tide. We generally park near the Lobster Pool, at the foot path entrance, the walk is around quarter of a mile. The weather was iffy with possible rain, so this time we decided to gear up at the car and walk with full gear to the site. Though, I carried my last minute gear and weights to the site in the first trip. Since the weather was decently cool it wasn’t too bad of a walk.

The entrance was much easier than I remember. Probably more barnacle growth on some of the rocks allowed a different path than we usually use. For the first dive we went down to ~50 feet and kept right, that was where Dan and Jason had seen the goose fish two weeks ago. Of course I wasn’t expecting to find it in its same spot but why not try it :). Of course we could not find it. Next dive we wanted to stay on the left, took 330 degree bearing. The rocks were covered with kelp until we reached the thermo cline which was around 25 ft.

The dives are beautiful. In the spring time there were many posts about scarlet psolus in Folly Cove, I haven’t seen any in my dives. I had stopped looking for them and finally I saw a bunch in Halibut point. At the reef fish count I recorded “few” and “many” for those sea cucumbers.

I also haven’t seen so many radiated shannies in one day before. There were also lots of rock gunnels in addition to the regular cunners. There were a school of pollock which would appear once in a while during the second dive. In the first dive Bert showed Jason and I a juvenile (more like adolescent) sea raven. Those guys are grumpy even at the beginning of their lives. Kids, don’t leave your light on a random rock to mark a sea raven. You may never see it again, a 400$ light. But if you see a wolf fish that is totally acceptable. Good thing, this dive no dive light was lost. 🙂

Anyway, walked back to the car with all the gear, packed up and headed to Stage Fort Park for the reef fish count. That’s where you get to fill the fish ID forms and get your raffle ticket. I generally try to do, or more like intend to do, the reef fish count but somehow I  don’t it. This fish count event is a good event to get a whole bunch of fish count data as well as a good reminder of how we can make our dives count. Plus there is the raffle. Many dive centers and organizations donate gifts for the raffle. I was lucky to get a 50$ gift card from Mass Diving. Thanks Mark 🙂

The gloomy day with clouds and rain ended up with sunshine and good diving and a 50$ gift card. I didn’t even mention all the lobster we got. I would do it again any time.

grubby

Dive 1:

Max Depth: 63 ft

Bottom time: 62 min

visibility: ~10-15 ft

Bottom temperature: 52

Dive 2:

Max Depth: 55 ft

Bottom time: 56 min

visibility: ~10-15 ft

Bottom temperature: 54