Ogden Point at Night

I hooked up with a bunch of divers from Frank Whites Dive Shop for a night dive at the Ogden Point Breakwater. Ken, Chris, and I wanted to meet some new divers and hang out with some old friends. I have a long-standing relationship with the people from Frank Whites, and it’s where way back thousands of dive ago, I received my PADI Open Water Certificate and began my underwater adventures. Our goal on this dive was to get some images of Stubby Squid, but for me I also wanted to get another dive in on my Fusion Drysuit and the Si-Tech Neck Tite system I’m testing. The conditions on this evening were great: calm seas and good visibility. The only difficulty was the tide, as it was out quite far out, and anyone who has dove the breakwater at low tide knows that it can be hard on people and even harder on gear! We walked out to flag 2 and descended down to the sandy bottom. The soft sand around this area and beyond along the breakwater is the best place to find the Stubby Squid. It didn’t take long to find three of these creatures, each about the size of a pea. After spending some time capturing images of them, we moved on down the breakwater and came across a fourth pea sized squid along with one the size of a golf ball. What an amazing find! I give all the credit to Ken who spotted the big one while I had my lens trained on a juvenile Black Rockfish. Having the unprecedented opportunity to get some images of such a large Stubby Squid was truly a memorable experience.

During this dive I was also able to get some images of a number of other inhabitants of the breakwater, including a Red Irish Lord with a parasite on its eye, Grunt and Sailfin Sculpins, and of course the Disheveled Sea-mouse. This was a spectacular dive and one that I will not soon forget. Thank you to everyone from Frank Whites plus Ken and Chris for being awesome spotters and holding their lights just right so I could get some fantastic images.

Scott