piemancer

 

"I have sea foam in my veins,
I understand the language of waves."

  An orangutan could tear us limb from limb as it swung from limb to limb.

And it isn't even Xmas yet! I love not having to work on Christmas, though the money and power is nice.

We got a tree yesterday, and took the dog for a walk. After dinner yesterday, we watched Ghostbusters, and I impressed Daniel for knowing a movie.

I got to watch Zombieland this morning, which was brilliant. We took a ton of donatables down to the St. Vincent's today. We cleaned up the house like mofos, and made our own dinners and everything. We put on santa hats and went to the local Binary Christmas. We just watched my second-favorite Xmas movie, Bad Santa, as we decorated the tree.

Daniel got the train out for Dave to put under the tree. A train! Under my tree! I am pretty damn excited.

It will only get awesomer from here. 

 Daniel, Mark & I dove at Saltwater State Park today. I recall them mentioning that it was a 53 minute dive to 75 feet (my computer is with my regulator, which is being serviced). We wanted to visit the reefs there, but I think we were in the tire reefs north of the dive site. Alas! I sure hope we get to go back. People say such wonderful things about the place. 

Something terrible did happen during this dive.

I did see two things I had wanted to see since my Marine ID class- a horseshoe ascidian and a sharp nosed crab's Evil Villain Mustache(TM). I spent so much time investigating my ascidian that my buddies were worried that I wasn't ok. Horseshoe ascidians are much firmer and more solid than I ever thought. It sounds so horrible of me to say, but I think I'd be fascinated to dissect or watch a dissection of one. *shudder* Only marine biologist graduate students are unsatisfied by the transparent nature of your run-of-the-mill ascidian, to want to dissect one of the unusual ones.

At about our turn-around point, when I was already so cold that I was about to stop having fun, Daniel handed me the shell of a giant acorn barnacle. Now, Daniel knows this is my favorite animal, and he also knows that I already have a shell specimen for one of these. The one he handed me had plenty of neat calcerious stuff growing on it. I was entertained for moments and moments shaking all the sand out of it.

Here is what i was thinking as I inspecting this shell. "Oh, this is a good sized base, but the access hole is so small. Hm, it doesn't seem to be very roomy inside. *shakes more sand out, closely inspects again, shining light inside* I should really, really not take this. Giant Acorn Barnacle shells are important homes and hiding places in the ecosystem. It's so unusual to have one that nobody's living in or laying eggs in. But there are so many in the ocean, it's not like I'll have an impact removing this one so I can show it to students. But I already have one. But Daniel gave me this one, and I do so treasure gifts from him, especially stuff from when we're diving." Oh, i knew it was wrong, I knew it was wrong, and even in the face of killing the inch big anemone growing on it, I put the shell in my pocket to take home with me. 

That was the terrible thing that happened. The shell already was home.

I had just watched the movie The Abyss this very morning, and there's a part of the movie where a guy in a hard hat and a neoprene drysuit with no undergarment needs to rescue someone from a submersible rover by dragging her through eight minutes of thirty degree water. She has no exposure suit or breathing gas, so they're going into it assuming she was gonna die, but holding out hope that the extreme cold would preserve her brain without respiration. I thought of that about forty minutes into our dive. There I was, in an undergarment so thick that, if it fit Daniel, he would certainly be using it, in a warm crushed neoprene drysuit so dry that I feel guilty every dive that I dropped $2000 on it instead of using the money to buy two $1000 drysuits, or even one $1500 drysuit and a disposable $500 drysuit to get Daniel through the winter. There I was, thinking "sand, sand, rock, sand, barnacle, crushing, debilitating cold, sand, cold, sand, great viz, cold, sand." I finished up thinking that, at 3,000 or whatever feet the non-exposure-suit lady was, it would have been the cold that got her, way, way before the inability to breathe would have made her gasp in the last inch of air at the top of the submersible rover.  It's cold in the water. And I was thinking, as I was not shivering, as I lost control of all but the most rudimentary functions of my hands, as I felt the -umbles* take me over, that it would only take another couple of problems for it to become an emergency. From forty to twenty feet, my ears started seizing up, but we were ascending, so I managed ok. 

Oh, look! A sand star! They don't have suckers on their tube feet, which is typical of starfish who live in sand and mud. Imagine have thousands of little feet, and being in such control of them that you could pass a grain of sand from one foot to another to excavate a little starfish-shaped indentation in the mud. I guessed that they were after a clammy dinner when they did that, but I don't know much about the motivation of echinoderms. Those little suckers don't even have a goddamned brain controlling them. Even my pet tarantulas had a thick wad of ganglia that was in charge of the whole show, but echinoderms don't have that.

Oh, yeah. Daniel found a green sea urchin. I saw a few orange cucumbers and california cucumbers. 

On our way back to shore, I was the first one to say, "eff this swimming shit," and start walking. Soon after, Daniel, the generally recognized leader of our trio**, did the same. we took off our fins and slogged in.

We were back at the truck, rinising our gear, when I decided that I should take the barnacle shell out of my pocket. I really didn't want the anemone in my pocket at home, dying and smelling up the house. I examined the shell, and before I could even find where the anemone was on the outside, I happened to notice the unmistakable markings of a saddleback gunnel in the shell. 

Before I had thought another thing, i cried, "Oh, shit!" and ran back to shore as fast as I could go in a drysuit. I didn't turn to tell anyone what the problem was. I just thought of this poor little guy who was only getting oxygen to his brain because of his wet skin. I vaulted over the driftlogs and pushed families of beachcombers out of my way on the way back to the water. I was in up to my waist, dipping the barnacle back in the water so the little gunnel could have something to breathe. I waded out to the point just before i was buoyant and put the shell back in the water. I knew it wasn't deep enough for the poor gunnel, but a girl can hope. I didn't want to throw it deeper, because the concussion would have been unpleasant for the gunnel.

I turned and headed back. Just then, Daniel came over the rise to check on me. I signalled I was ok, and, satisfied, he turned back to the truck. 

Moments later, after I had waded into water at least two feet shallower than where I'd released the barnacle shell, I had the horrible realization that gunnels rarely come singly. I opened my pocket, pulled out my magnifying glass, and gently fished around inside. Sure enough, something wriggled against my hand. It took three tries, but I scooped another gunnel out of my pocket. I sent him on his way, unable to take him to his mate, but hoping against hope that they'd find each other. A ten foot radius isn't far when you're a five foot tall mammal, but it seems huge to me from the perspective of a ten centimeter gunnel.  Good luck, little guys. I hope low tide doesn't kill you.

Yeah. Don't collect shells, kids. It's a bad idea. Even if your boyfriend gives you the shell of your favorite animal. Someone else loves that shell more than you ever will. "Were you gonna take it home?" asked Mark. "Yeah, I was gonna take it home. But it already was somebody's home."

I hope we can go back. I want to redeem myself. Maybe we can go camping there, and do a night dive.

*When observing a diver to see if they're experiencing hypothermia, you look for the -umbles: they grumble, mumble, and stumble. That's in increasing order of severity. I wasn't complaining about the dive, but everything was <i>hard.</i> It was work to do things, and I had to decide that i really wanted to do them, and I had to put my whole force of will behind it. I was pretty cold. Sure, I didn't have the best control over my extremities and lips, but they came back pretty readily, and I knew I was OK when mark said somethign funny and I laughed at the surface. Not just a "heh" kind of laugh, but a laugh that lasts as long as a seagull will make its cry.
**Once, Mark and I went on a dive without making explicit who was leading. He's got years of diving on me, but I'm a lot less comfortable not knowing the compass heading back to shore and all that. Thirty feet into the dive, I realized he wasn't leading and I wasn't following him, so I assumed I was leading. That dive turned out well, but  folks should really decide these things above water. Mark & I communicate mighty well underwater, though, so I still remember that as a really fun dive.
 

My Secret Santee asked for airline bottles for Xmas. So far, the most clever way I can think of to wrap them is around a belt. The catch is, he's a pretty big guy, and  I'd have to go to a big & tall outfitter to find him one (I'd say he's around Pavarotti sized). There are only six bottles, so I think a tackle box might be overkill. 

Can you think of a clever way to wrap six airline bottles for a co worker?

 I had some delightful, though uneventful, dives this weekend at Mukilteo.

My first two dives, on Saturday, were with S & L, a mother/daughter team who had taken a hiatus after their dives one and two of their open water class. I had helped their instructor with some of their pool sessions, but I was scheduled for another class during their open water. 

Anyhow, Their dive two, my dive 290, we went down to the line, did some mask skills and reg recoveries and alternate air share ascents...maybe other stuff? I don't remember. I swam around while they were on the surface and checked out some flatfish. I spent a lot of time hanging out with a C-O Sole; they keep their fins tight around their bodies when at rest, but fan them out beautifully when they are swambling someplace else.  When the students went on their tour, they followed Daniel and I followed behind them. I tried to follow above them, so in the unlikely event of them losing buoyancy. I'd be right there to stop it from happening. They were both really good with their buoyancy, though. The only time I was gonna do something, they were already releasing air from their BCDs before I could touch 'em. 

Their dive three was more memorable to me. We did mask floods, fin pivots, and CESAs on that dive. Below, i noticed a heart cockle that I wanted to show the students (it was a supreme act of will for me to not to show them, but i totally should have),, but I tried to hold out until we were all together. I did show them some crabs and some anemones and flatfish.  We didn't have time to see the cockle, though.

On the tour on this dive, we went down to fifty feet, passing the tire reef on our way to the geo dome. The tire reef is the home of the youngest reliable juvenile wolf eel, which is a bright orange longfish.  After the students looked at it, i swambled over it to say hello, and he peeped out to look at me. We saw the largest octopus, at the geo dome, and the wildlife of the vicinity. Surrounding the geo dome was the hugest school of shiner perch i've ever seen at Mukilteo. On the way back to shore, Daniel noticed a pycnopodia walking very fast, and a something jumping out of the way in front of its progress. It turned out that the something was a tiny wee ickle octopous. As I told David later, I  rarely elbow the students out of the way to get to look at the wildlife, but i didi in this case. Big octopus are reliable and predictable, but young, free swimming octopongles are special. 

The next day, Daniel and I arrived before our student R. I was excited for our dive with her. She did something a little unusual- she used a wetsuit under her drysuit for warmth. wee took ten pounds off her during her buoyancy check, so she used only 25 lbs of weight to get down, and she  was still overweighted. We went to set the float, and I showed her a heart cockle's jumping. Then, we went down the training log, past the tire reef, and down to the geo dome. On the way, I checked to see if my favorite barnacle was the there and happy. Unfortunately, when I looked in the nook where the barnacle lives, all I saw was some encrusting sponge. Again, we had a large school of shiner perch at the geo dome, the octopus in the tubes in the middle, and a trip up to the T dock.

R is good on air, so we easily made it over to the wine rack before she hit half air (she was in a 2400+ steel tank). We said hello to that wolf eel, who is still quite brown, and then swambled back to shore. R caught all the surprise air  expansion at 20ish feet quite easily. I caught her checking her compass once or twice as we came in. She was more alert to my behavior as we came in, rather than Daniel's, so when we got tot he appropriate shallowness and i stood up, R did too. Daniel was the last to surface, by about .75 seconds. :)

I took R down for her drysuit dive, and Daniel took S & L for their dive four. I had planned to take R on a long, long dive, but we took our time going down, and checking out my favorite barnacle(he's fine), and going over the tire reef, and looking at every little tubeworm and hydroid. I pointed out a goby and a chiton and a giant pink hydroid to R, and there was a large wolf eel in an upper part of the geo dome. We went over to the wine rack from 60ish feet, and said hello to the orange wolf eel over there. On our way back, I encountered another heart cockle, and made the poor thing jump for me again. I made it appropriately clear that I was ashamed to make the little mollusks dance for our pleasure... but still! That was the largest heart cockle that I had ever seen, and it showed me parts of its insides that I had never seen before.

Here i am in the eelgrass. The first 20 or so of you can see it with the invite http://flickr.com/gp/64554470@N02/823Wb8. The rest of you can ask me at xines77 at gmail dot com. 

Daniel, Peter, Mark and I went on a night dive at Redondo Wednesday. I don’t
recall how long we were underwater, but our max depth was 72 feet.



Daniel & Mark hit the water about a minute before we did, and I had told
Peter I was ok to go down before checking to see if the regulator was in my
mouth. Most people would probably notice if they were breathing off a
regulator because there’s air, and a mouthpiece, and a Darth Vader sound
coming from behind their heads, but I spend a lot of time diving, and I
don’t notice any of those things anymore. I had to feel up against my face
to see if there was a doorknob there. Of course, there was, because I had
gone through all my checks, and I have a lot of muscle memory and training
that get me to do the right thing without noticing it. Still, I want to be
actively aware that I’m doing the right thing, not just underwater and
breathing.



Like a sixgill shark, I am neutrally buoyant at depth, not at the surface. I
often float at the surface a bit after I’ve let the air out of my BCD.
Rather than flop and struggle and exhale, I wait until I’m in water deep
enough to do a pike maneuver and let the weight of my legs drive me
underwater in a more dignified fashion.



Once below, I noticed a crab and another species of crab and another species
of crab. There were those yellow ones, whose name I forget(I’ll have to look
it up when I get home. Oh, wait, never mind. They're totally helmet crab
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwfchu/4800608375/in/set-72157623788891562 ).
Then, Peter flashed his light at me and pointed to one of these.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VY6r4KwWwBE/SaHmDJtMAOI/AAAAAAAAAwA/yAX_YyS_6dY/s1600-h/2009-02-20.2.jpg



It stayed calm as I examined it closely. I hadn’t seen anything like it
before. I wondered if it was a young weird shark, even. Reluctantly, I left
it behind to stay with Daniel and Mark. Little did I know that I was going
to start seeing them every ten feet. Ha.They're eelpouts, and they are even
cuter than their name, though their tails are a wee bit creepy. I remember
reading in the Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest that they're quite
common. I'd never seen one before tonight, and neither had Daniel, and his
drysuit has five times more dives than I do, and he only got his drysuit
after he'd been diving a year or so. Maybe they were pouting up in the
shallows for a change of pace. They're faster than a flatfish when you poke
'em. I poked one in the tail, not the pout. Eelpout!



We did see some octopus. Mark and Daniel love octopus, but Peter and I are
more, “Yup, eight legs and suckers, and asleep. That’s an octopus, all
right,” and then we’re done. If one were suitably near the edge of its den,
I’d take a glove off to say hello; that’s what I look for anymore when I see
octopongle.



As we were wandering ahead (I wasn’t leading the dive, but I came across a
rope thicker than my arm, which is diver sign for “We placed more reef over
here, too,” so I followed it), I spotted a tiny tiny little octopus, small
as your enter key, I bet. Whenever I find a young octopus, I feel a little
sad. If I can find it, someone else can find it, too, and that means it’s
not far away from being renamed Snack. I imagine boyhood or girlhood for
octopongle is a time of great terror and anxiety. Probably also some fear
and trepidation: you’re a smart animal made of 99% soft parts. You have to
get out and find something to eat and somewhere to hide without having a
ratfish or a flatfish snarf you up. And your mom died the day you were born!
I certainly forgive any small octopus who has inked me, and I forgive in
the future should an octopus ever bite me. May they forgive me for harassing
them



Where was I? Yeah, Redondo is a delightful dive. And there’s a shower there!
Daniel had been leading the dive, and he and I did keep tabs on each other
even after I'd wandered ahead. Peter kept me abreast of his air consumption.
He was at about 800 when I swambled back to tell Daniel that Peter and I was
leaving, but as I approached, I saw him tell Mark, "I'm at five; let's go
in." An instant later, the four of us were in the eelgrass shallows, and
Daniel & Mark on the surface. I was doing my best to keep them in sight as
Peter investigated the neighborhood of the eelgrass flats. I think he could
tell I was eager to rejoin Daniel & Mark, so he cut his eelgrass admiration
short. Zostera marina! A powerhouse of Puget ecology. I have a picture of me
with some eelgrass in my hair. I should see if I can post it.

Daniel & I did a 51 minute dive at Three Tree last night. We saw a little octopus- one of the under football sized ones- and a stubby squid. I thought about how I hadn't yet pet the shaft of a plumose anemone, so I pet one that was already retracted. About halfway in, I saw the first ratfish of the evening (it's really unusual not to see them). I think my max depth was 83 feet. Daniel said I act differently at depth. 

 I went on a dive last night with Daniel at Three Tree. He just got a new camera for his housing, so he took lots of pictures. I think we were underwater for about 45 minutes, and our max depth was 82 feet. I played with lots of algae, and got kicked in the head a time or two while looking at the algae sparkle off of Daniel’s fins.

 So many tubesnout! We saw a few octopongles, and TWO stubby squid RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER. I got cold, but I bet Daniel got very, very cold, since he was wet (he plans to change his neck seal today or tomorrow). I also got to see my first grunt sculpin, but I didn’t get to hear it grunt. I think it was sleeping. There were also some pretty big surfperch.

 My computer is pretty darn conservative, so going back to look at my grunt sculpin put me into decompression obligation. It’s really just something sort of like a safety stop. Just going up the slope a bit and looking at the wildlife on our way back took care of the five whole minutes the computer wanted. In addition, it always requests a safety stop, which we did while Daniel took a picture of a sailfin sculpin.