Tag Archive: Grunt Sculpin


Last Dive of the Year, at The Cut.

Filed Under: Whytecliff by Roko — Comments Off on Last Dive of the Year, at The Cut.
December 29, 2013
Puget Sound King Crab

A Small Puget Sound King Crab

After a thwarted dive at Britannia Beach in the morning, I made my way down to Whytecliff Park where Paul and Steve were waiting for me to join them on a dive.

We hopped into the cut for a nice dive. Although it was a bit chilly on the surface, it warmed up a bit once we got below the thermocline. The visibility was amazing by Vancouver standards, and I managed to spot a really good diverse number of critters. Unfortunately I didn’t get any shots I love this time out, but I got some good shots of the different critters I saw.

I’m begining to think my perceived decrease in good photos is being caused by getting too close to the subject. I used to zoom in somewhat, and take photos from futher back, casting smoother lighting with my single strong. I think by getting too close it’s making the lighting too sharp. A second strobe to even things out sure would be nice..

Grunt Sculpin

A Grunt Sculpin…

One of the critters was another Grunt Sculpin, which I managed to get some half-decent shots of. One of my favorite local species, and I always struggle to get decent photos. One of the reasons is that I usually see then on a bottom covered in shells, which is really hard to properly expose with the highly-reflective whites. They also don’t like to properly pose, always hopping about on the bottom when you get close…

Plenty of different crabs as well, as evidenced in the top photo, and all the photos in the gallery below.

Not too much else to say about this dive, it was a good way to end off the diving year. Now for a work-induced dry spell, and then back at it again!

The rest of the photos are below:

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A Furry Creek Dive to Kick Off December

Filed Under: Furry Creek by Roko — Comments Off on A Furry Creek Dive to Kick Off December
December 1, 2013
Sponge Residents

Many creatures find home in the deep sponges

Armed with a good tip for where to find a Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker, Josh and I drove out to Kelvin Grove for a dive. Unfortunately, the 4 “Visitor” spots were already taken. (The 10 stalls reserved for Lions Bay residents were all free, naturally. I maintain that all the locals I’ve met while diving there have been very friendly, and we respond by being courteous to the local residents. Unfortunately their town council wants to restrict non-resident access)

Hairy Spined Crab

A Hairy Spined Crab at 30m

Both armed with doubles, we first swam out towards the wall, checking out the larger anemones and sponges that live along that feature, maxing out at a nice 30 meters — I fell the narc while trying to manoeuvre into position for a shot of a Hairy Spined Crab — Back-kicking with a loose bootie, watching my depth gauge, keeping my buoyancy, and trying to line up for a upwards shot (since he was hiding somewhat) proved to be an interesting level of task-loading today. After snapping a few shots, we ascended to a shallower depth. A cool thing about the Sponges is just how much life lives in and around the sponge themselves, usually various crustaceans.

Sculpin

A really cool Sculpin who posed nicely for me

After the wall, we swam back into the rock field, the spot I prefer at Furry Creek. At about 10-15 meters average depth are plenty of boulders, providing ample shelter for many different species of fish and other creatures. Again, there were plenty of Irish Lords guarding egg masses, as well as a really interestingly coloured and patterned Sculpin. Also in the area is the bottle-field, which has lots of interesting old bottles — No cool finds this time around.

One cool find was what I initially thought was  some sort of Tunicate, but I couldn’t match it up in my book. However, it looks pretty spot on for Stubby Squid eggs! Looking up some more references, I’m fairly confident that’s what they are. I can’t wait to get back in after they hatch to try and find some baby squid, in less than 4-9 months… (Quite the long gestation)

English Sole

A rather large English Sole

We spent a large portion of the dive in the super-shallows — Where lots of overlooked little creatures tend to hide out. Although it was ridiculously cold, we ended up with a 110 minute dive time, a new personal record for both of us. The drive home treated us with some sun and nice skies, Howe Sound truly is an amazing place, we’re lucky to live here.

The full gallery is below. Again, a lot of photos here this time around. I struggled to narrow down to 4 highlight photos…

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Summer Diving in Tuwanek

Filed Under: Tuwanek by Roko — Comments Off on Summer Diving in Tuwanek
July 27, 2013

After a long few weeks of moving and business travel keeping me out of the water, Josh and I hopped on the early ferry this morning for a couple of rewarding dives up in Tuwanek. The weather was fantastic, and the viz down below 15 meters was epic. It must have opened up more than 20 meters in visibility. As always, lots of life to see in Tuwanek, which is why it truly is one of the local gems.

Unfortunately, however, I had to do this dive without a strobe on my camera. While doing some equipment checks last night, I discovered my strobe wasn’t working. This is the second time I’ve had strobe issues at Tuwanek. Of course, I have the internal camera flash completely masked off in my case, so it was of no use this time around.  (The internal flash triggers my external strobe, however to avoid back scatter the internal flash needs to be fully masked off). Not to be deterred, I decided to bring the camera along anyways and try taking some ambient light photos anyways. I figured I could even use my newly upgraded LED can light to illuminate some things too.

Was it ever worth it!

Red Gilled Nudibranch

A Red Gilled Nudibranch

Although I didn’t manage a lot of great shots, I did get some okay shots. I also managed to get the above shot of an Red Gilled Nudibranch*. For this shot, I used my LED canlight to side-illuminate the nudibranch.  It produced a rather nice effect focusing light and attention on the Nudi, almost like a snoot.  This has to be one of my favorite nudibranch photos I’ve taken so far.

Grunt Sculpin

Grunt Sculpin

Shortly later, I saw a Grunt Scuplin, which have to me my favorite type of scuplin. Something about their colouring, shape, and the way they sort of hop around makes them interesting to watch and look at. I only had one chance to take a photo, as right after it decided it no longer wanted to be party to photo taking and turned around to face a rock. Regardless, I got a fun picture, again using my can light to illuminate the fish from the side. It could have turned out better, but I like it regardless.

Early into our second dive, Josh got my attention and pointed out a swimming  giant nudibranch! I tried taking a video, but it had stopped swimming by the time I got the camera set up. Some photos are in the gallery at the bottom of this post.

Seascape

A Typical Seascape at Tuwanek

The amazing thing about Tuwanek is just how much life is packed into the area. It truly is like diving in a fishtank. The small tides, sheltered conditions, amazing visibility and warm water temperatures all combine to make it one of my favorite BC dive sites. The Sunshine Coast in general is fantastic as well. At least the ferry ride is relatively quick to get out there for day-trips!

I don’t have a RAW editor installed at the moment, so I’ve only tried touching up a few of the ambient light photos. My camera doesn’t have the best low light performance, but I got some interesting shots anyways. Perhaps later I may fiddle with processing some more of the RAW images to see if any are worth recovering and posting.

The rest of the photos I have processed are below;

*Note: I initially miss-ID’d this as an Opalescent Nudibranch (Hence the jpg filename). Upon checking my handy reference book, it is in fact a Red Gilled Nudibranch.

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Diving the Sechelt Inlet

Filed Under: Tuwanek by Roko — Comments Off on Diving the Sechelt Inlet
July 3, 2013
Steffy

Steffy in Amazing Viz

My lovely dive partner and I had the opportunity to spend a night with family up in the Sechelt Inlet, at a beach house Steffy’s parents had rented south of Tuwanek. (Luckily the Ferrets were feeling much better after their bout of illness on the weekend, otherwise we would have had to cancel on this short but fun trip!)

The beach house  had a dock, which made for an easy giant-stride entry right from where we set up and put on our gear. Quite a treat compared to huffing gear all the way down to the water at Whytecliff.

A lot of new stuff in this dive, including my upgraded dive-light (which worked amazingly), my new Heser backplate, simple fleece undergarments instead of my thick Mk3 (The water was very warm) and the first time taking my camera out in nearly a year! It took a bit of shaking out, but we got a couple of great dives in. The Viz below the first few meters was incredible, as always in the Sechelt inlet.

Unfortunately, my camera got bumped on sometime during the trip out and the battery was nearly dead by the time we got into the water. Nonetheless, I got a few nice shots. Not some of my greatest photos, but not bad for being out of practice with the camera!

Nudibranch

A Couple of Nudibranch

The new dive light worked phenomenally well, but in some of my photos I realised I had developed a bad habbit. Since the old HID had been fairly dim in comparison, I used it as an aiming light. Usually I’d point it away as I released the shutter, but sometimes would leave it since it barely effected my photos. Not so much with the bright LED. You can clearly see my little mistake with the Grunt Scuplin photo. I think it’s time to invest in a proper focus light.

The Heser plate was amazing as well, being able to do away with the weight belt completely with lighter insulation was very liberating. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so free while cold water diving!

I borrowed Steff’s Dad’s GoPro camera for the dive and had it mounted on my goodman handle, but unfortunately the video seems to have become corrupted. I’m trying to recover it, and if I’m successful I’ll post a video in the coming days.

A few more pictures below:

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Easter Sunday dive at Britannia Beach

Filed Under: Britannia Beach by Roko — Comments Off on Easter Sunday dive at Britannia Beach
April 8, 2012
Squat Lobster

Squat Lobster!

Grunt Sculpin

A Grunt Sculpin. Usually these guys live in barnacle shells, but this guy was hiding under the wreck.

A Fish

I like the focus on this shot.

Britannia Beach is currently one of my favorite dive sites, as the wrecks harbour an amazing amount of life in a concentration that I haven’t seen elsewhere locally yet. (Although I suspect Porteau should be similar now that I’m getting better at spotting critters.)

With all the nooks and crannies, the site is home to various types of crabs, including several types of decorators, squat lobsters, varius sculpins, shrimp and much much more. The best part is that the dive is relatively shallow, so I can manage long dives on a single tank. The first dive we stayed down for 60 minutes, the second was somewhat shorter.

I took the opportunity on this dive to experiment with aperture settings on my camera primarily to get different focus effects, but some other results came out of this, notably green backgrounds. Even with the small range of apertures available on my Powershot G10, going from small to large meant the difference of black backgrounds to green backgrounds, and a large change in depth-of-field.

Several treats for me popped up on this dive. First, I found a squat lobster which posed nicely for me. Next, while searching under the hull of the Ready, a colourful rock moved and caught my eye. Upon closer inspection, it was a Grunt Sculpin, the first I’ve seen. Unfortunatley it was a couple of feet away under the hull, so I had to put my single strobe out to the side to try and fit the camera under the hull and avoid back-scatter from the silty water. I managed to get some good shots as he hopped around the bottom. Afterwards, Paul found a Buffalo Sculpin which posed very nicely as I took many a photo, adjusting camera settings each time.

There were also several Lincod faithfully guarding egg masses around the wreck. I gave them all a wide-berth to not agitate them and give them reason to chase me away….

I also came across a couple of male Tanner Crabs fighting over a female Tanner Crab for mating rights. I took a video of the end of the fight: (The video is a bit green from the water, I didn’t set up the white-balance before taking the video, since I was in still-photography mode..)



This was one of my best dive days in a long time. I really enjoy the diversity of life at this site, and seeing new and cool animals is always a highlight of a dive!

See the rest of the photos below:

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