The second dive of the day for the West Coast Shootout, we hopped in at the small wall. This wall is located to the left of the beach, and the best entrance is down a small ravine that leads to the water. This wall runs parallel to the beach and is quite shallow (maximum 40 ft/ 12 m), however the life is incredible. The rocks that jut out of the sand are covered in anemones, sea stars and macro life. The wall is also undercut, providing a sanctuary for many juvenile fish and is a great place to find Bay Pipefish, which are relatives to the seahorse. On previous dives I have seen hundreds of these elusive creatures in one area. There are also a number of shallow octopus dens scattered along the length of this wall. On this particular dive, we managed to find 4 octopus on the wall and I was able to get some great images of one large octo hunkered down in its den. I decided to shoot macro on this dive hoping that I would get some images of a pipefish along with some of the different nudibranch species that reside on this small wall. I was not disappointed: not only did I find a pipefish, but I also managed to shoot a large octopus in its den. This particular octopus was quite large (5-6 ft /2 m) across and was hiding under a slab of rock. To be able to get a good shot I had to remove my strobes from my housing and place them off camera to generate the light that I needed. I also placed my spotting light off camera, which allowed me to see, and my camera to focus. The images turned out quite well showing that sometimes you have to think outside of the box to get the shot you want.
I would like to thank everyone who came out for this first shootout, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the year!
Part 1 of the Madrona Point Blog link
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