With a full day of calm seas, I thought Sunday would bring much better viz to Folly Cove, similar to 40+ft that I could not dive last weekend. However, the viz was similar to yesterdays dive and frankly I couldn’t care less because my head was always 1ft away from the bottom surface. All I needed was 1ft viz 😀

Once again many nudis were out and about. I still get to see a pair doing “it”. We didn’t see nudis doing “it” but we did see a pair of horseshoe crabs holding on to each other and being very clumsy. It may be their first time (hihihihihi).

Every year you see something new and then you start seeing that everywhere. In yesterdays dive I had seen A. gibbosa for the first time and today I saw at least three. Things just come and go, and when they come they come in abundance, similar to the seahorses last summer (I am curious if they will still be there this year!). Abundance of any sealife is no reason to complain. Well, maybe except for lionfish.

Today, I didn’t notice and floaties nor saw any fish. It was mainly creepy crawly fest with all kinds of nudies scattered around. Nothing to complain about 😀

Buddy: Bert P.

11ft, 50min, 41F, 10-15ft viz

“Let’s just get this shit over with” is not something I said only once at the beginning of a dive. Actually, if it is winter time, if I am diving dry, that’s the last thing you will hear me say before I start bubbling. As years go by and the pounds build up, shore diving with drysuit and camera gear gets too overwhelming. But you gotta do what you gotta do. So, past Saturday I got shit over with. 😀

The week before I had some stress at the beginning of the dive so I had to cut it short. It was due to cold. My gloves were leaking, so with the fear of freezing my head never got used to the cold, I started breathing heavily, eyes started to hurt, the drysuit started to choke. That dive lasted 5 mins. Having that experience, I wasn’t sure how this dive was going to be, but it turned out great. I gave myself 40 min tops, but ended up doing 59 min dive. It was a nudi safari, great variety of bigger than normal nudis everywhere.

The dive was great. Dan and I dove the right side of the Folly Cove, just because we didn’t want to spend time and body heat trying to get to the wall. And we were satisfied with our decision. Big chunky nudis were everywhere. It is a special treat when you see a nudi species for the first time. Very delicate and elegant looking Ancula gibbosa was on our path on the way back. And there is nothing better to warm you up, or distract you from the cold, than some cool creature you want to take bazillion photos of. 🙂

As usual for the early spring, underwater was full of creepy crawlies, worms, bugs, you name it. They were all creeping and crawling and floating. I managed to see a rock gunnel and a flounder among them. Soon the nudis will leave and these fish will be everywhere…

I recently bought +12 supermacro wet lens. I tried it during one dive before and it was quite unsuccessful, I realized that it really has a learning curve. With this dive, and help with online documentations and forums, I started to get better photos and I am loving it. I am looking forward to summer with ridiculous close ups of all kinds of animals out there 🙂

Buddy: Dan H.

15ft, 59min, 39min, 10-15ft viz

The dark falls much earlier now, we can get in the water by 630pm and have 2 hour dive and get out an hit the road by 930-10pm. That helps a lot for the ride back home, where I get way too sleepy that I have to call everyone I know to keep me awake.

This Sunday we met around 545-6pm, got in around 630 as planned. The water was perfect, flat surface and great viz underwater. As usual we went towards right wall on the right and reach 25ft, and found really cool walls with different formations and sponges and corals. Where I shined my light I would see tiniest pink shrimps scattering around. They were so tiny that the moment I looked at my cameras screen to composed a shot I would lose them.

Once again we saw quite a few. From tropicals we found a snowy grouper and a cornetfish. We found two seahorses and two smooth (probably) skates. It was dinner time for the crabs, most of them were nibbling on some mollusk they caught. It was great dive. When is the next one?

Buddies: Jason F, Andrea D, Eric A.

120 min, 25ft, 120 min, ~10ft viz

snowy grouper smooth skate cornet fish

The day supposed to be great with low waves but as we arrive Jerry S, just came out of the water and said the words “Horrible viz”. I must admit that I entertained the idea of skipping it all together but my buddy drove 2.5 hours to get to the site so we had to dive. And glad we did. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to see the pregnant seahorse, all the schools of squid, the butterfly fish and the tiny shrimp I always enjoy to capture.

The viz was patchy at times, ranging from 3-7 ft, we did have a great dive regardless.

Buddy: Mike M.

18ft, 120min, 64F, 3-7ft viz

butterfly fish searobin

Many people agree that it was a tough year, 2016. As it is coming to an end, looking back to this years dives is the best way to soothe myself and motivate me for the upcoming year.

Apart from all the politics and deaths going on, it was also disappointing year for me because I just felt I couldn’t get enough diving (not sure if it is ever enough). Over the summer, due to illness, conference, moving, bad weather I missed many weekends. I see September/October as the best time for diving around here but I always go for a vacation, which takes away a few weekends of diving in New England. Overall, in New England, Florida and Costa Rica I did total of 50 dives this year, pathetic, huh? But, you know, quality over quantity, right? I had few but awesome dives!

This year I upgraded my camera set up to Canon G16 with a better housing (Fantasea) which allowed me to access all the settings in the camera. Canon brand housing, which I had in my previous setup, does not let you go all manual. Later in the season, when I was in Florida, I couldn’t resist to get a macro filter for my set up to get even closer to the tiny stuff. It just feels like I just can’t get a close enough look at the marine life :). I also got a fish eyes lens, but could not fully utilize that, yet. But in terms of taking photos it was fun and adventurous year.

Here are some highlights with Best of 2016 photos. The “Best”ness is basically due to how much adrenaline it makes me secrete when I see them. It maybe because it was a very exciting moment when I took the photo, or I was just impressed by the photo I took (Most of the time I am impressed when I have a good focus :P). It is completely subjective to my view of aesthetics and my experiences.

New England:

I really feel I couldn’t get enough of New England diving this year. I had to waste too many weekends! But the amount I got to see was amazing. I have been diving here for 4 years and this year was the most variety I saw around here. This year I saw many creatures which were first sighting for me.  To start with, in our winter dives I added five new nudis to my “repertoire” : A. papillosa, F. bostoniensis, C. gymnota, E. exigus, O. ascidicola. As the summer warmed up the land and finally the water, more fish started to join our dives. For the first time I saw a big ass lump fish and a goose fish. These and searobin were in much higher numbers compared to earlier years, that many divers reported seeing multiple in one dive. This year I also saw many striped sea bass, almost in every dive at shallow ends. This was surprising to me because last year I have seen none!

We also did very few night dives. My favorite night dives are in Fort Wetherill, due to abundance of life and possibility of seeing cute colorful visitors from south. While we had a few great night dives with attacks of bazillion squid left and right, general diving in Fort Wetherill was a little lame this year. In contrast to Cape Ann area, I happened to see much less variety and amount of fish; even the tropicals were very limited. Also the visibility of the cove seemed to be a little worse than last year. But we had at least one unforgettable dive with all the squid. There were hundreds! no thousands!

It was definitely quality over quantity kind of year for me in New England. I hope next year it will be both quality AND quantity. Because it is scientifically proven that as one spends time under water the happiness index increases exponentially.

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Florida:

Florida on my birthday is a tradition now. Every year since I got certified I spent my birthday in Florida. A week of diving, what more a person can ask for? This year we continued the tradition. Actually it was a common celebration, as Bert’s birthday is only a week apart from mine. Last year we did a few dives in Blue Heron Bridge (BHB), and it was not enough. And we said we have to have a week of diving at BHB. And this year that was the plan. The weather and water conditions were perfect. We did total of 10 dives there, including early morning dives and night dives, hours adding up to more than a day :). I also had a record time underwater, 3 hours and 15 mins! We saw so much. Every single dive is full of surprises there! I can’t even put into words how much I love that dive site. Tiny little area, full of all kinds of creatures, from sharks to tiny nudibranchs.

There diving is a feast and later going over your photos is another feast. Whenever I feel bored or down or feel like diving but I can’t, I just go over those photos. I hope one day I move to Florida and get to dive there after work. That’s the dream.

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Costa Rica:

That was my trip in September. My family was visiting and they have been around in the area, not really interested in history of Boston so why not go somewhere else? I got my sister and friend motivated into diving just in time, they both got certified, got advanced and had some experience before coming here so that we could get some diving in Costa Rica. We planned 3 days of diving in Playa del Coco. I don’t think Costa Rica is a place you would go for diving but good place to include diving in your travel. Playa del Coco is on the pacific side of the country, totally new waters to dive for me, with possibility of seeing different creatures! And we did! My most wanted creature was harlequin shrimp, and our dive master could show us a pair! That was awesome! And we saw seahorse and many bull sharks along with bazillion other fish, many of which are new to me.

The waters were not crystal clear as you would see in Caribbean waters, but that means a lot of nutrients, and LOTS OF fish. Especially during our last dive in Bat Islands we were sure that we were about to loose our minds, it was crazy amount of fish. Shoals, no, walls of fish left, right, bottom, up. Did I say crazy amount of fish? Just amazing! Again, I am short of words to describe the life underwater. Maybe the photos will help?

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I am actually grateful that I could dive the amount I could this year, never take anything for granted! I just hope I get to dive more often, in variety of places and see variety of creatures! Happy 2017!

Peirce Island never disappoints. I mean, it may a little with lack of abundance of verillis, but would still provide you a beautiful dive.

Today, thanks to Patriots Day, Jason and I could spend a weekday in the water. It has been a while since I was at this site so I wasn’t sure what was the news with the nudis. Plus Jason was diving it for the first time this season, so we had to find some nudis, for his pleasure.

Unfortunately, the number of nudis had decreased significantly. We saw mostly F. verricosa with a lot of appetite for the hydroids but there were barely any verillis. We also saw a few bushybacks, but definitely not at the sizes we used to see here. So, the nudi season at Peirce is coming to an end. That’s ok, we enjoyed quite a few dives there this season, so cannot complain.

It was overall beautiful dive spent mostly on the hyroid field. In addition to the nudis we saw there were a few tiny decorator crabs, rock gunnels and grubbies. No sturgeon fish 🙁

Nice day to be out there and get under the water at Peirce Island.

42F 46ft 44min, 3-10 ft viz

Buddy: Jason Feick

It has been a while I have been hearing about this site and finally we ended up diving here.It was one of those off days for me, under weighted, cold, unorganized with the camera, especially with fat fingers. But, it was still an awesome dive. It is a beautiful site, which has to offer all kinds of terrain. Boulders, wall (I didn’t see, I heard about it), crevices, sand. All were there.

We entered between low and high tide. I don’t care what people say about this site, I had the hardest time getting in and coming out. It was slippery close to the water so I sat, slowly dragging my ass on the rocks, making my tailbone “ouch!” at every touch. Coming out was on all fours, miserable! Took probably 20 mins to get on my feet, funny view for the people, and yes, there was audience 🙂

We were talking about lump fish before the dive and within first 10 minutes of the dive I saw three of them. They were babies, a little scared but so freaking cute.

This time of the year a lot of creepy crawlers could be find, due to the really low numbers of fish which would otherwise eat them. A lot of little bugs that I wouldn’t be able to identify, weird worms, etc.

Skeleton shrimp, lobster, a few varieties of really tiny nudibranchs, rock gunnel, crabs, clam worm (yuck!) were among the things I could identify in this dive.

Again note to self, not only check if your camera is working before the dive, make sure you have the right settings. Otherwise you may end up with shitty jpeg formats of your photos!

31 ft, 57 min, 39 F

15-20 ft viz