On the evening of June 30, Matt and I dove at Edmonds Underwater Park once again with three fellow members of the Marker Buoy Dive club. The visibility was extremely good, often exceeding 8 meters, and the tide was about a meter above mean high tide. After a long surface swim past the jetty, we descended at the first buoy and swam west along the trail.

Matt brought out the macro lens and was able to capture some good shots of the extensive fish and invertebrate life present on all of the structures. The usual enormous lingcod and cabezon were present, along with numerous painted greenlings, copper rockfish, and assorted sculpins that were too small and quick to identify with any certainty. Huge schools of tubesnout were hanging around some of the sunken small boats near the western edge of the park. Several varieties of nudibranchs were out and about, including clown, opalescent, and frosted. We also ran across couple of fist-sized sea lemons. Almost all of the Dungeness crab we encountered were still locked in the “mating embrace”.

Overall, it was an excellent dive. According to several veteran Puget Sound divers, it is unusual to see so little plankton present this time of year. A week later, the hot, sunny weather contributed to a substantial bloom and poor conditions during our subsequent dives at Keystone Jetty and Redondo. Now I understand why most divers look forward to winter here. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted…

Here are a few of Matt’s photos from the Edmond’s dive:

A clown nudibranch (Triopha catalinae) shows off its fluffy gills.

A graceful decorator crab (Oregonia gracilis) flees the scene.

A painted greening (Oxylebius pictus) tries to conceal itself in a clump of algae.

One of the dozens of fearsome lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) at Edmonds. Some individuals were in excess of 1.5 meters long.