trilink

man, i've been meaning to post, but i just haven't gotten around to it.
i guess you could say i've been busy. i don't really know if it's the truth or not.

anyway.
the majority of my posts just seem to be links to flickr, and tonight is no different.
except for the quantity of links.

first off,
i hung out at the pool with a coworker that doesn't work at the pool.
good times were had. no one drowned. and i had good company.

second.
my Ohioan pit partner, Will, from my Alaskan dig at Broken Mammoth sent me some pictures today.
I thought i'd share them all with you, so i put them up.
i put them in a set, but i mixed them in with the ones from way back when.
so this link should make it easier to find.

finally,
i went diving yet again today. my 4th tuesday in a row!
once again, i ditched the camera, but it was still a cool dive.
and i still took pictures.
i'm starting to get the hang of the whole bouyancy thing:
let air in as you're going down, let air out as you're coming up.

i'm still having issues with kicking up silt, but i think i'm getting a lot better.
it's my major focus now.
any slight turbulence will leave a fat trail behind you.
the easiest way to get around that is to leave a buffer between you and the ground, say 5 feet.
but really. what's the fun in that?
my whole reasoning to get into scuba is to poke and prod everything that lies beneath.
so i just have to go the more difficult route and learn to keep my knees bent and legs up.
you can do a frog kick in this position that propels you fairly nicely.
Cory showed me the 4 kicks today. there's one that supposedly makes you go backward.
when i tried it, i went no where.
meh. more practice.

but goddamn i'm so much better than even the last dive i went on.
i can somewhat hover, i can travel in a straight line, my arms don't flail as flagrantly as they used to. it's my baby step for this underwater environment to become second nature.
i bet the classes i take in mid november will really accelerate the process.

now i really want to buy shit. Cory is selling me some steel tanks, which are better than the aluminum that i have in that they never go negatively buoyant (make you float) as you lose air.
when you wear aluminum, you have to tack on 6 extra pounds. when steel tanks are empty, they're neutrally buoyant (neither sink nor float).
you also get more compressed air from the tank 700 vs 800 cubic feet.
i can't see where i can go wrong in buying these.
of course he's selling them at a fair price, but that makes my life easier so i don't have to go out and search for tanks.
it's one less thing on the list.
we've still got: compass, dry suit, new first stage, badass light.
well, i guess that's it for now until i get into the nitrox and argon and tech diving.
either way, i'm having fun.

today i saw another 2-foot purple sea cucumber.
i came upon it then had to go and catch up to Cory.
so i fluttered my hands around to get some backward momentum, which totally launched the poor sea cucumber!
the current from my hands caught him and tossed him a good ten feet.
they're soft and squishy, so i bet the landing wasn't all that hard.

we checked out the train wheels again, and went back to those anenome-ridden logs.
we went to a place when even more anenomes this time though! where there were logs that were hatchmarked like a number sign "#", and white anenomes (with the occasional splash of orange) covered every square inch of those logs.
THAT was an anenome forest.

we made our way back to the Sunbear. the sunken tug boat that harbored the octopus on my first dive.
this time when we checked underneath, there was a very LARGE purple fish.
this was probably the largest thing i've seen underwater beside the octopus, which i really didn't get to see to its full extent.
this purple monster at first looked like pictures of wolf eels i had seen from tacoma, but then i realized this thing had fins like a fish.
it was at least 3 feet long and dark purple.
to begin with, it was just chilling under the bow of the sunken boat.
Cory shone his light on it.
for a moment it just sat there.
then, it opened its eyes.
it felt like a scene from jurassic park. reptilian eyes opening up to the world to see whetherthe appropriate response to the disturbance is to flee or attack.
the fish pondered it for a while.
he did a 180 showing his massive size and length.
his tactics worked.
somehow when struggling before with that backward kick, it instinctually kicked in through fear.
I looked over to Cory.
he made a motion with his hand. he had the top four fingers coming down to meet his thumb like a mouth.
then he continued to make that motion until he was clamping down on his opposite forearm.
ok. the thing bites.
i won't ask questions, let's go.

just prior to this i foolishly thought that i had conquered my fear of what presented itself in this underwater world. i had run into dungeness and kelp crabs, zealously annoying them with gentle jabs as they reared up to face a giant that they could do nothing against.
their best defense was to find a corner to back into and poise with claws ready to strike.
by that point, they were no longer easily accessible to prod, which left them to win that round.
i also came across a GIANT ling cod.
the one in the photo there was maybe a foot long, but the one i came upon was nearly 3 feet long.
it had the same reaction, where it was resting/sleeping until it felt my disturbance.
it opened it's eyes and focused in on me.
i really don't know how to describe the intensity of that moment.
it's almost like you get to see the confusion and cognitive workings of the fish's mind all in a few seconds time when its eyes open and meet yours.
after processing your unusual form it reacts.
this time, the cod decided to just flutter away.
nothing quick. it just didn't want to hang around and be disturbed or wait for possible harm.
but talk about dinosauric! that thing looks like a dimetrodon with its jagged dorsal fin.
it's slightly unnerving.
but for some reason, this guy didn't seem as frightening as the other purple fish.
i think maybe because the purple one seemed to be more lurking, whereas the ling cod was out in the open and laying exposed.
also, like with the crabs, animals tend to be much more aggressive when they're backed into a corner.
if the ling cod wanted, he could have easily shot off in any direction, whereas this purple monster had no where to go.

i forgot to check the water temperature again, but we i do know that we made it down to 65 feet.
nothing too big. this time i think Cory wanted me to experience the longer dive rather than the deeper dive.
this time around we were in the water for 45 minutes, whereas before we generally called it quits after a half hour.

good times were had and everyone lived.
that makes for a good day.

i have one more dive i can get in before Cory goes in for knee surgury on November 10th.
I'll miss that guy. maybe i'll get him something for all his troubles.