Alki V

I went to Alki for the 5th time on Tuesday. I'm almost a pro (yeah, right).
I almost asked if I could take my camera along this time around, but unfortunately after I learned that we'd add something new to the equation (lights), I thought otherwise.

So once again, the pictures of my Alki trip were from above the water, and rather boring.

I SO wish I would have had it. There's always new things down there.
We headed out on our usual route, but then went out to these sunken I-beams.
Don't know why or how they're there, but they are, riddled with anenomes.
Those guys will attach to anything that's not dirt.
i saw a dog toy down there with an anenome attached to it that was twice its size!
That doesn't seem too safe to me, but only time will tell with that one.

So the overcast made the use of the lights essential. I have one, but the one day I take it out of my car, I need it. Luckily Cory had a backup that I could use. We trodded out to my new record depth: 91 feet!
I don't even know how to describe it down there. In other instances, the view in the water slowly fades away at enough of a distance that it doesn't bother you. But down at this depth, a good 5 feet ahead, and you everything gets blurry. A green haze. Very odd.

Once again we found a cluster of long, purple sea cucumbers. But what i actually found with my own light, is that if you shine your light directly on them, they turn blood red. Same with the crabs. It makes the sea life appear even more eerie and dangerous.

I spotted a new fish while out at those I-beams that are a good 80 - 85 feet down.
Halibut! I almost missed spotting this guy, as they do a very good job of blending in with the muck around it. And even though the link I posted was of Altantic Halibut, the two that I saw looked exactly like that. I'm guessing mud is brown no matter what ocean you're in.
These things weren't massive like those you sometimes hear about, they were only about a foot long.
But still, it was something I could easily identify, so it was rather exciting.
It's so weird how the migrating eye sticks way up.
I wonder if halibut are "sided," meaning that they lean to one side. If i remember correctly, the two that I saw were both lying on their left side like the halibut in the picture.

Creeping back up to the Honey Bear, the sunken tug boat that has harbored either an octopus or an eel-like, purple fish on some of my last visits, I came upon a large engine block, presumably from the sunken vessel itself.

Chilling on the block was a dungeness crab. Yeah, by now I've seen a ton of these, but this one was different. Between its claws, and hugging to its chest was a smaller dungeness crab. They were both chest to chest with the smaller one being perfectly cradled between the larger one's massive claws.
I didn't want to piss them off too badly, but I moved toward them to see how they would react.
The smaller crab stayed nestled between the claws, while the larger crab initiated its sideways-walk away from possible harm.
So I really don't know if that was a male and female crab doing the hibbity-jibbity (I don't know if sexual dimorphism exists in dungeness crabs) or if that was just a parent guarding it's juvenile. I have seen other dungeness crabs the same size as the smaller one out on its own, so that's a tough call.
Man that would have been an awesome picture!

Moving on further, we came to the remains of the top part of the Honey Bear. It looked like there may have been round portholes that survived the foundering. No glass or anything, just the structure itself. It resembled something like an old-school submarine: a big bulbous dome with a small, round porthole just large enough to stick your face into.

Then we came to a point that I always recognize: the spot where the octopus and large purple fish tend to hang out.
This time, however, we came from the back side.
This meant that we had to swim over the wreck, then come down to the overhang where these creatures lurk.
Since I had a light this time, i thought i'd be brave enough to check it out simultaneously with Cory.
so we came over the overhang and dropped down to where we can peer under the broken bow.
as we were shining our lights in, we saw nothing.
darn. first time we've checked out the Honey Bear to find nothing.
Then! from my periphery comes this elongated purple flash!
that large purple monsterous being that was hiding there before just shot by me at about 3 feet away!!
it slithered into its tight nook and positioned itself after a 180 so it could keep its powerful-looking jaws between us and him.
it almost seemed like the fish was protecting something.
maybe it was being terrritorial, maybe it has some eggs or young hiding back there and it was just out foraging when it saw us sneak up upon its nest.

we both thought this would be a good time to leave, so we did so until we came upon two I-beams that were almost vertical, and once again, covered in anenomes.
about 15 feet from the bottom, still about 40 feet down, there was a small (3 inch long) fish-looking eel.
my description sounds wholly uninteresting, but this thing looked weird huddled in between all the anenomes.
Cory called it a "decorated something". i just can't remember what that something was. Decorated War Bonnet sounds about right. and looks about right too.

finally around 45 minutes of down time, we emerged to a hot chic with a barking bull dog who was on the shore giving us a hard time.
she eventually drug the dog away. sad.
my air was getting pretty low: in the red about 600 psi left.
every other time, unless purposefully releasing air to 500 psi, we've come out at around 1000 psi.
being down at that 90-foot level really eats up that air!

my finds, which i'll photograph later were a fork, an oyster shell, and a clay-like lump.
i can't really figure out if that's what it is or not, but the grey substance rubs off in your hands.

getting out of the 53 degree water wasn't bad until i started to disrobe.
then i froze my nuts off.
i drove however many miles to my pool in lake city, only to find that the motor for the hot tub had blown up, and it wasn't warm at all!
that totally sucked. but i still made the best of it.
i went into the sauna which didn't quite do it for me, so i went instead to the steam room.
i went in dry, which i'd never done before, and it was really weird to sit there and feel the perspiration form on your skin.
you can literally feel it transpiring through your pores. an odd feeling.
as my feet were pretty numb, i just sat there forever with my eyes closed.
possibly 20 minutes to a half hour.
longer than anyone else could stand it.
i had to warm up a good deal.
when i came out i was all shiny from pure sweat so i thought i'd hit the showers.
man, i tell you, being surrounded by hot mositure is SO not the same as being consumed by half-boiling water.
that tub better be up the next time i need it.