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.

It was a great day of diving. The water was much warmer that I could finish first dive with my first buddy, Ryan, and then catch Jason and Amy as they were getting in for their second dive without getting out to warm up. Did I freeze to death the second dive? Hell yeah!

First dive we dealt with some issues. The thermocline was extremely wide, because of all those thermocline waves I could not see much of anything between 15-25 ft depth, which was quite annoying. We did see some nudis, most notably a few Cuthona gymnota. They were pain to take pictures of, tiny, hiding in the stems of the hydroid which swayed back and forth with surge, spent probably 20 min to get a photo 🙂 . We also saw a beautiful decorator crab with colorful pompom like sponges all over it. Too bad I couldn’t get a photo of it.

Second dive I was cold, because I was too lazy to get out of water between my dives to warm up. We saw variety of nudis again in the middle reef including two big lemon drop nudis and if I am not wrong another C. gymnota. My first searaven of the season also showed itself to me, a small brown-red searaven.

Buddies: Ryan M, Jason F, Amy N.

What else can a person ask for on a birthday, great weather, great dive, bunch of nudis and other cool creatures great dive buddies.

We hit Folly Cove again, all of the divers in New England (it looked like), The conditions looked great and we did have a great dive. Finally I could see a nudi I have never seen before, dendronotus robustus, thanks to Amy and Jason. It was pretty and quite big compared to the nudis we usually get around here. However, there is not such thing as “usual” in this nudi season. They were big, a lot and diverse. As a macro photographer I cannot complain even tho I really tried.

The water is getting warmer and it allowed us to have a nice long dive even in wetsuit. The season is started and I am quite excited about it!

Buddies: Bert, Dan, Jason, Todd, Amy

51F, 17ft, 87min (I don’t remember the viz but probably pretty good)

I skipped some dives between this report and the last one I wrote, some were not worthy because I was just getting used to cold diving and the others I will hopefully write a summery for soon.

This dive at Back Beach was very special for me. Not because it was my first dive here in 2-3 years, nor because it was an easy nudi dive. It was a special dive for me because today my dive buddy was my sister!

It has been few years that I infected my sister with dive bug and since then it has been a chronic condition for her. We dove together in Turkey, we dove in Costa Rica and even in Blue Heron Bridge (FL) many times. But I never had a chance to show her my green waters here and I never thought I could. See, she dives in Florida in May in 5mm wetsuit.

But, I was not born yesterday. I have been in these cold waters for a while and I know ways to cope with the. For todays dive I had my drysuit but I had a 7 mm wetsuit with additional 7mm shortie with hoodies for her. On top I had a 7 mm mitts to keep her hands warm. And with the warm water we poured into her suit and boots and mitts before we enter the water she could sustain her body heat longer; and she did. To my surprise we had a 50min dive and she did not freeze to death. I was so proud of her and so happy that I could show her our beautiful landscape we have here, our green waters, the modest nudis and all the creepy crawlies of the spring. AND SHE LOVED IT!

Well, I am not sure if she would do it ever again because the gear annoyed the shit out of her, especially the gloves. Few more times she would get used to them but unfortunately we didn’t have more time. But still we cherished the time together in my “underwater home”. And you know what, she even found a doto herself, a tiny white doto!

48F 12ft 48min 10-15ft viz

Buddy: Ege EE.

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!