Over the last few months the reef balls have become home to a huge amount of marine life. The structures themselves are now so covered in growth that most of the reef balls are indistinguishable from the rest of the substrate.
One of the new methods to monitor and catalog the growth on the reef ball has been to install a numbered tag to each one. This will allow Valerie and others to identify each reef ball and watch the changes to the growth over time. Once all the reef balls are tagged, a map will be made that shows positioning, depths, and distances. With 92 reef balls now in place assistance is required to help Val and her team install these tags. About one third of the reef balls have been tagged to date. Anyone interested in helping us out please contact Val either by email or on facebook.
Contact Valerie Mucciarelli: SERG Projects or facebook
As for the dive itself the visibility at the reef balls was probably the worst I've seen in a very long time. The amount of particulate, overcast sky and current made for one of the most difficult underwater photo dives I've ever been on. Anyone who has ever dove around Vancouver Island knows that during certain times of the year you can jump in the water and the conditions can be so bad its like diving at night. This was one of those days! I'm always up for a challenge and working in those conditions really provided me with an opportunity to be more creative and think outside the box when I wanted to take an image. There are so many factors that come into play and having the mind set to make the best of a poor situation will help at the very least produce one or two images that are usable.
Ogden Point Reef Balls - Images
Ogden Point Reef Balls Blog - Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5
Please if you have an opportunity to check out the reef balls or haven't been for a dive on them for a while please go check them out.
Thanks,
Scott
