6 replies to this topic

[Coo's Toe]

Sniffle sniff sniff... achoo! I guess I just don't know when to quit sometimes! I still haven't made it by the shop to pick up my drysuit, but I didn't let that stop me from making four dives on Saturday and another two on Sunday... brrrrr!

Scubafreak headed over from Yakima early Saturday morning and we were off and running to Les Davis for a shakeout dive to 73 feet for a chilly 50 minutes. The white lined dirona slugs are showing up to breed now, and I came away from the adventure with some sweet photos of these showy little nudibranchs. I had been telling the Freak about a new resident monster sized lingcod, so it was a treat when we found him right out in the open between some concrete structures early in the dive. Last time we were at Les Davis, we found a medium sized GPO holed up in a cave, and we managed to find the den again without too much effort, and sure enough, we got a good show of large red tentacles and sucker discs. What really surprised us was when I discovered a juvenile male wolf eel has taken up residence in one of the concrete blocks that litter the site. He wouldn't take any of the scallops we offered him, but he didn't seem very frightened of us either. He would duck into his hole if we got too close, but then he'd come right back out again if we backed off a foot or so, so he'll probably be eating out of diver's hands soon after he's seen a few. I got a couple good shots of him before we had to leave.

Next, we headed down the street to explore a new site called "Deadman's Wall" that I've been wanting to try. It's a deep wall, starting around 85 feet and dropping vertically to around 130 before sloping again. We were both pretty narced, but we managed to keep it together and had a great dive. We pushed ourselves to the very brink of required deco stops at a max depth of 116 feet, then spent the rest of the dive slowly ascending back up the slope and exploring the bottle garden and eelgrass beds in the shallows. No big critters on this dive, but the site was pretty exciting and begged for further exploration.

After a trip downtown for airfills and extremely spicy chinese food, we headed back to deadman's for one more. ( As long as we're offgassing, why not OFFGAS?? Right? ) Another great dive! We hit 121 this time and explored a bit more of the wall, which is actually quite a bit bigger than the site description led me to believe. Again, no big critters, but plenty of small interesting stuff to entertain us and enough of a happy narcosis buzz to make it worthwhile no matter what there was to see.

As if all that time spent in a borderline hypothermic state wasn't enough, I let the Freak talk me into one more dive. We headed back up the street to Les Davis, and after drying my wetsuit a bit in the late afternoon sunshine, we headed out for a mellow dive above 60 feet. Light was disappearing pretty quickly, so it turned into a nice night dive under the cloudy layer above 20 feet that the ebb tide brings. Highlights of the dive included another good visit with the little wolfie, watching a metridium attempting to reel in a huge egg yolk jelly by the tentacles and eat it, and another stop by the big octo's den.

Amazingly enough, I still felt pretty healthy the next morning. Another friend from Yakima had joined us late the night before, and we decided to take him to deadman's wall for a look see. We discovered a monster octo hiding out in a cave we had completely missed the day before. It wasn't too happy to have my hand invading it's den... heh heh heh. Another good dose of naRcOsiS to start the morning off right, yeeeeee haaaaaaw!!!!

By this time, I was coming down with a cold, even though I didn't realize it yet. The first sign was the painful ear clearing difficulty I experianced at our second dive up the street later that morning. One of my tubes was already plugged, and it took three attempts and a lot of strange hand signals before both ears were good to go... I almost called the dive after the first couple of tries. We ended up having another great dive at Les Davis. I got some sweet shots of the dironas again, and we explored a section of the park we had always assumed had no structure whatsoever, only to discover there's plenty of artificial reef action going on there too.

Today I'm sure paying the price for all my wetsuit foolishness... I can't deny any longer that all that chilly underwater fun beat up my immune system pretty good, and now I have the cold to prove it. :dltears:

[WreckWench]

Dude I can help you with that problem....the immune system stuff that is...the mental part you are on your own!! LOL!!!

Kamala
Diving Nutrition aka the Day Job

[jextract]

Rock on, CT. We miss ya around here!!

[triggerfish]

hey, erin!

what a great report! you've got quite a way with words. maybe you missed your calling....
so when do we get to see the pix???


oh...and btw...if you need any private -duty nursing, you just let me know, hon...

Edited by triggerfish, 09 August 2004 - 11:13 PM.

[Marvel]

hey, erin!

what a great report! you've got quite a way with words.  maybe you missed your calling....
so when do we get to see the pix???


oh...and btw...if you need any private -duty nursing, you just let me know, hon...

(elbowing my Sistuh aside) Erin, can I bring you a hot toddy?? :anna:

Great trip report, Erin! You almost make me want to dive my home state- almost. But, I second my Sistuh- we are waiting for pics!

BTW- you've been missed by many, even the guys!

[Coo's Toe]

Sniffled my way through another 10 hour shift today that felt like 15... achoo!!

Head is alternately filling, then draining, only to fill yet again with a viscous fluid. Yes, ladies, any hot todies or private nursing visits are welcomed at this point...

As for the pics to liven up my trip reports, I have an appointment with the high speed internet provider gods Friday morning. I'm SOOOO looking forward to not making special trips to the public library just to not be able to post pictures for everyone to enjoy. Getting settled has been a real adventure so far, but now that I'm finally on a regular schedule ( with 3 day weekends, yeaaaaah! ), life should start returning to normal.

So... who's flying out my way to nurse me back to health???

[triggerfish]

i'll be there around 4 am....
move over....