Under the Sea, Part Two

Further diving adventures and photographs in our local waters by Dave (Hogger) Millhouser of Lanesville. 



Caslyn and Sculpin

"Some of the marine life around here is extraordinarily odd. We have more than in the tropics. The reason the water is so clear in the tropics - there's nothing in it. It's sterile. All the marine life hovers around the reefs, where the ecosystem is. Our water's green in the summer because it's full of algae, plants at the bottom of the marine food chain."

 
  There's not as much color around here as further south, but what's here is strange and fun.

 

"Under water the seasons are observable and distinct, once you got used to seeing them. In the spring we have nudibranchs. In the winter, very few fish but the water's very clear. The algae dies off. If you can go a week or so without a storm you can have 50 or 60 or 70 feet of visibility around here. You wouldn't get that in the summer, because of the green algae. Even if you have great conditions, 30 feet is phenomenal in the summer."



Toad crab, or Decorator crab

"I've gone into Old Garden Beach in the winter, sat down on the bottom next to one of the big rocks, didn't see anything, waited four or five minutes, things start moving - Toad crabs, brightly colored nudibranchs - a slug, a mollusk without a shell, some quite colorful. Tastes bad. For many of them it's a defensive mechanism. They want to be colorful so fish stay away."



Red-gilled nudibranch

"There’s a thing called a Red-gilled nudibranch. A big one is two inches. They eat Pink-hearted hydroids, which are special animals on the side of the wall at Folly Cove that are related to jellyfish. They have stinging cells. The Red gilled nudibranch eats the hydroids and does that without discharging the nematocysts, their stinging cells. The nematocysts then move to the end of the gut - people think they are the gills, the frilly things along the back, the tips of them are white - those are undischarged stinging cells from hydroids eaten that become a defense mechanism."



Pink-hearted hydroids

"Here's another great story. A barnacle is a shrimp, an arthropod that swims around till it finds a place it likes. It lays down on its back, glues itself in, builds up that case around it. It has little shell-like things that open, stick out what was its tail, try to sweep organic particles inside the shell to eat. It's mind-boggling. You can learn this. You can see something, then go find out what it is."



Barnacles feeding

"In the spring you find one-inch flounder, lobsters that are one-half inch, the size of your fingernail. You find miniature versions of all kinds of fish that have just hatched, or hatched a while ago, and now you're just seeing them."



Squid eggs with mollusks crawling on them

"On the right side of Folly Cove are tumbled rocks. In the spring, go looking for nudibranchs especially on large rocks in the center. That's when you'll see mucus-y egg veils, from mollusks in particular. Large ones from Moon snails, teeny ones from nudibranchs. It's only for a couple of weeks, then the eggs hatch, the veil disintegrates, and they leave." 


 
"Everything is different at night. They won't allow divers to take lobsters at night because they're out just walking around. At night time it's spectacular because a lot of the animals are nocturnal. You will see animals that hide during the day. Squid. The beauty of squid is, people are usually looking down, or sideways. Squid are up in the water column. If you want to see squid at night shine the light up there periodically."



Blue shark, Folly Cove

"If a fish is moving, and afraid of you, you're not going to get a picture of it. But if it's curious about you....With the visibility underwater, you have to be within a few feet. The real beauty is, in real life, you're not going to take their picture unless they're willing to tolerate you."

"I've literally laid on the bottom and seen things and said, Thank God I got to see this. Lots of people never get to see whatever that was. Like the day of the whale. I was at the Haight. I literally was as close as you and I are to this whale. A juvenile humpback, probably 16 or 18 ft long. Striped bass."



Lumpfish

"It's up to the animal. Little ones, they'll think they're camouflaged and let you get real close but once you bother them they're gone. Strobe will freeze motion of fish. You're not going to see a cormorant chasing fish."



Eyed finger sponge

"I've had a lot of fun over the years sitting still, turning the light off, wait for a while, and then turn it back on. Sometimes you will see things."



Ocean pout, or Conger eel

"My take on it, with animals, is anytime a wild animal chooses to interact with you, that's a great privilege that not many people have. Any animal. I will never force that. Normally you can't, anyway."