Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Friday 6-24-09

Friday 6-24-09
Boat: Moana Olapa
Capt: Russel Brown
Divemaster: Joshua Lambus
Location: GPS was not on
Current Strength: Light
Highlights: Small squid, Squid Ink, Seahorse.

Once again we were running without GPS, which isn't a problem as I've learned to predict fairly well where the 3 mile mark is. When we first jumped in there was barely any current at all. The first thing I saw was a very large Lucothea pulchra. None of the other divers saw it and I was expecting to see a plethora of things floating by us. But it soon became apparent that that was not the case. There were still some straggler heteropods from the loads we were seeking in recent weeks. Over all the dive was fairly "normal", if you can call a blackwater normal. About half way through the dive we seemed to hit a good current that was bringing all sorts of cool critters. Lots of ctenophores, and siphonophores we usually see, then the squid showed up, as well as some kind of jack chasing them. They were inking left and right, one of our divers even got enveloped by a large cloud, that couldn't have come from one squid I think. Toward the end of the dive I found a small squid that was perfectly round, like a marble, then upon the intrusion of my light it stretched out a bit and swam off as fast as it could... which being only about a cm long when stretched, wasn't very fast. At the very end of the dive after all but 2 divers were out of the water a seahorse came floating along. I used to think these little guys were extremely rare.. but I may have to rethink my opinion on that one. We exited the water and headed home.

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