Some midsummer pictures.

      With the season in full steam and we are starting to accumulate some decent pictures and video from our recent adventures with Cape Ann Divers. We dove the Salvages, the Haight, the Poling, Halfway Rock, Neverfail Ledge, and Boohoo Ledge just to name a few. So far, the vis has been good and the weather only skunked us once. Since this is a photo blog and I'm not in the mood to write anything exciting, please enjoy the following pictures!

The Salvages. There is a large (gray?) seal in the foreground. I wish there was something to put him into perspective. Lot of seals and birds this day. Downwind of the island was not the place to be...

This is from my favorite snorkeling spot in East Gloucester. I don't know how, but it always looks like the tropics here. Blue water with stellar vis. 

Another from East Gloucester. A baby cunner coming out of his home to look at his reflection in my camera. 

A friendly and curious rock gunnel.

Sea star close up. The orange spot is the value for its water circulatory system.

Atlantic Wolfish in Cape Ann

        We met this lady offshore while diving with Cape Ann Divers a couple of weeks ago. A rare find (though I can't take credit for finding her) not to mention my first REAL LIFE wolfish sighting. OH Boy! I couldn't stop thinking about this magnificent fish. What's not pictured is a debris field of pulverized shells that were in front of the wolfish home (a broken pipe.)  In other words, anyone who was unlucky enough to be a passerby in this particular location.

After snapping a few pictures she became a little bit agitated and began to show off her artillery (pictured below). At that point I let her be and returned to the boat overjoyed, and happy to still have all my fingers...

 
Well folks, the season is in full swing. I'll do my best to start posting on a regular basis. In the mean time, enjoy the wolfish. A face that only a mother, or a fish-nerd could love...

Saturday Night Ledge

      Here's our short film on "Saturday Night Ledge," located offshore of Gloucester, Massachusetts. This video was shot over the course of 5 days during September-November 2011. Despite frozen head and hands, sea-sickness, and a touch of narcosis, we had a blast making this one. This is truly a magical place.

Thanks to Cape Ann Divers, Captain Steve, and Dave for getting us there and back so many times in one piece.

Shot on a Canon T2i with natural light (or lack thereof)...

Above Cape Ann

Last fall, my buddy Mike Abelson took me up in his Skylane RG to get some aerial shots of Cape Ann. We were able to quickly and easily identify some of the best dive sites around the island. It was a hazy, but beautiful day, and it's always a blast riding in the front seat of a small plane (not to mention hanging out the window, camera in hand). In any case, this video that I finally cut together offers a unique perspective of some of our favorite dive sites. Enjoy!

Some more from the archives

         The Green Diver crew has been tirelessly preparing for the new dive season: gear inspection, maintenance, improvements, and some more camera equipment. We'll probably hit the water in May sometime and have some new content shortly after. In the mean time, I'll continue to post some more stuff from last year as I come across it...

A fierce friend at The Salvages. He kept trying to get his reflection in my camera housing.

Rock covered in tunicates at the Salvages

Star tunicate, pretty but invasive.

Macro Round 2

I decided to take advantage of the beautiful, sunny morning at Back Beach. I got there early with my macro setup and spent an hour in the water before work. My only objective today was to get good exposures and get a couple of 'portrait' shots of whatever critters I came across. Enjoy!

Flounder 

Rock crab

Windowpane flounder

  Hermit crab. The space between his eyes was about 1cm. 

Cunner boasting a snaggletoothed pout.

Beach Bugs!

I can't always talk about fish so here's the next best thing, BUGS. I took the following shots with my macro lens at Cathedral Rocks and Halibut Point Sate Park, both in Rockport, MA. Halibut Point can get crowded on the weekends, but is otherwise very nice. There's a few small trails to hike on, a big granite quarry, and you can walk along the ocean as well. There's no sand, but a lot of small tidal pools to explore by the water. I believe you can even bring dogs here year-round. Swimming is not for the faint of heart due to water temps and lack of easy places to get in and out of the ocean.

 I rescued this ant from a tidal pool and helped myself to some pictures while she was recovering. She's cleaning her front leg and still has a bead of water on her head. 

A very pretty (and hairy) horsefly? landed on me. After moving the fly, it was unusually cooperative for picture taking. All my macro shots are handheld which makes it difficult to draw accurate focus, and most insects don't stick around or stay still long enough for you to get many shots. This fly just chilled out on the rocks for a few minutes. 

Same fly, but from the front. This angle reveals the compound eyes and proboscis nicely.

To the right is a sand flea. These spring-loaded isopods are common on New England beaches. Some people get creeped out by these guys because they are frequently attracted to the underside of beach towels for shade and moisture. You can also find them under rocks and driftwood often along with earwigs. Sand fleas are quite small (the 'rocks' in the photo are grains of sand) but are capable of launching themselves considerable distances. 

Rockport (Sandy Bay) Breakwater

  The Sandy Bay breakwater rests about 1.5 miles offshore of Rockport, Massachusetts. The breakwater was a monumental design. Construction began in the late 1800s and was promptly abandoned in the early 1900s as the project was found to be vastly over budget. The incomplete breakwater has since become an enormous man-made reef attracting schooling fish and encrusted with invertebrate life.  

Healthy invertebrate life growing on the granite boulders of the breakwater.

The top of the rock wall ascends about 10 feet above water and quickly tumbles down to the sand 70 feet below. You can dive the wall at any depth, and the site is easy to navigate. The view from the top of the wall looking down is magnificent. 

The view from above. Schooling pollock are regularly seen at this site.

It is very difficult for photos to give a sense of scale to this place. Some of the boulders are the size of school buses. They provide excellent protection for the inhabitants of the area.

Chuck is exploring the crevasses looking for photo worthy critters.  

Some of the grumpier inhabitants came out to say hi...

 After diving the breakwater, the Cape Ann Divers boat took us to the Dry Salvages just to the east. Seals have been hanging out near the Salvages and we were in hopes to see some underwater. Within minutes of jumping in, about 4 seals found us. They would dart in front of you and be gone in a flash, or tug on your fin behind you when you were not looking. Apparently flaunting their acrobatic skills and speed, it was very difficult to get any decent pictures of them. 

The guy above kept whipping around me in circles, I was finally able to get a picture before he disappeared again. They seemed more like dogs than wild animals. Our encounters with the seals were fleeting at best so I came back to the Salvages a few days later. We saw some seals playing at the surface, but I personally didn't see any underwater.

Captain Steve told me were to find some colorful rocks, I heeded his advice and was not disappointed. The inverts growing on the rocks in the shallows of the Little Salvages rivaled anything I've seen in a tropical, coral reef. It was breathtaking.

I ventured a little deeper (35'-40') and found a bed of sea stars. There were thousands of them covering the rocks. 

Strewn about the dive site was rubble from the wreckage of the USS Grouse. The only discernible pieces I found were some old electrical conduit and other small metal debris. We lucked out both days with good conditions above and below water and a weak current. This was a fantastic dive.