went out snorkeling again. this time the lake was a lot less murky than the other times i've gone. possibly its just because it was earlier (10 am) vs all the other times that ive gone at noon. maybe not, but a possibility.

and since the water was a lot more clear, i found myself being decieved by the depths that i was diving to. before it would get darker at a given depth, but today light was penetrating further so when i was coming up for some of that living-giving oxygen, on a few occasions, it didnt come soon enough. well at least as quickly as i wanted it to, but i was never in any real trouble.

seeing further was really good for checking out fish. there were a lot of those usual foot-long ones with the bright yellow ventral fins. theyre the curious ones. usually i dive down from above them to chase them until i need another breath, but today one came upon me as i was looking at stuff on the lake floor. he was about two feet above me headed straight for me. i held my ground not making any sudden movements. he lazily flipped his tail fin forward. when he got close enough, about 3 feet, i slowly made my way toward him. reached out, and actually touched his slimy tail. first time actually touching a wild fish. well. other than ones on or previously on a hook. that guy was, yeah, about a foot long.

however, i think i saw the record breaker today, length- and girthwise, that is. this fucker was huge. i believe it to be something like a catfish, but like any smart fish that could grow to be this big, he kept his distance. this fat bastard had to be at least 3 feet in length. i'm telling you. this is something huggable, something you could actually wrestle with. i tried to pursue it, but it darted off away from shore into the blue-green abyss.

there was this other fish. only about 3 inches long, but it was boxy. about as wide as it was tall (stomach to back). it wouldn't use its tail fin, only its lateral fins (side fins, would be arms, whatever you want to call them). you could see the little spurt with every pull of the fin. it was moving so slow. i came up behind it, my mask a couple inches from its tail. it kept its inchworm pace. after about 15 seconds of drifting behind it, i stuck my finger out to it and it darted ahead about two feet, then went back to its snail pace. i let him be and moved on looking at more junk on the lakebed (why is it lakebed but seafloor?).

as for miscellaneous junk that i found. i found an old ford hubcap. 4 old movie reels, you know the kind? they usually come in a pair and have the tape visibly wrapped around them. i found 4 of those, but only one wasn't totally corroded. found a spark plug. more ceramic shit, bottles, etc. the usual.
however, in the last week somebody must have been practicing their golf shot cuz i found 19 golf balls, i'll tell ya, my pockets were full. 17 of them were the same yellow-colored ball. 2 others were white with 2 red stripes. there were 3 more yellow ones that i saw, but they were too deep for me to go with the one breath that i had, then when i dove down to find them again, i must have drifted away from them and couldnt find them.

i almost ran into the large tree that i posted about before. i was watching the lakebed and it popped up in my field of vision with about 5 feet to go. this thing sticks out like a sore thumb. amazing, especially with the clear water how i almost crashed into it.

came upon the mysterious metal wheels again. this time with the clearer water and less of a want to return home, i surveyed the scene. seems that they are both each a large spool. theyre about 5-6 feet in diameter and about 3 feet tall. they must have been used for the line on ship anchors. thats all i can come up with. aside from the bed frame resting next to them, and the couple of oxidized oil drums, there was something that looked like a safe. but i'm sure it was gutted of anything valuable before entering its watery tomb. everything seems to be discarded as trash.

speaking of tombs. i ventured further north than i ever had before. there was this bed of seaweed that almost looked like branchless fir trees, and just beyond this was the fucking doggie toy graveyard. any style you could imagine was here. chew toys, frisbees, sea-urchin looking rubber toys, kongs, small plastic footballs, even a deflated basketball. i found one toy that is a football shaped ball with various holes in it. inside is a tennis ball that has about 2 - 5 inches to roll around in the football depending on its location. dont know how the ball got in there. i snagged that one and brought it home.
as far as other tennis balls go. those are the hardest to detect because of their greenish composition. at first i estimated the toy collect down there to be maybe about 50 in this given area, but as i dove down deeper i had to bump it up to about 100 from all the camoflagued tennis balls. i wasnt aware of my location in regards to the shore, but as i popped my head up i saw half a dozen people hucking tennis balls into the water with their dogs quick in persuit. however, unbeknownst to me, i was out further than any of those people could throw. which is odd, because the other sites that i've been talking about is easily the throwing distance of a 7 year-old. i kinda skirted around the seaweed to get there. the dog park area must be more shallow than around the rest of sand point.

thats about all i have to report today. i'm hoping to bring keith along with me tomorrow. show him the awesomeness and disparaging deeds that are hiding in our very own lake washington. i wonder if theres piles of crap laying around anywhere else in the lake. . . i'm sure the navy probably got away with the most damage though. as for the rest of washington. i don't think i could get myself to dive around west seattle with all those yummy PCBs and whatnot. the sound is probably a bit more chilly than the lake as well.

i guess, by chance, i found myself a decent swimming hole.