Dave Wakeley, Pieter Bootha and Ed Gullekson met at Cove 2 for an early dive before the one posted on the web site.  First thing was that the visibility is getting good, in spite of the rain (so far).  We had 25 feet in many places along both dives. 

 

Two GPO's were sighted, one along the boundary at the plates.  The other is the really BIG one at the Honeybear.  The rockfish were out at the rock piles along with squat lobster at the second pile.  Near the Honeybear a ling has laid eggs in a broken log.  I did not see the guard ling until I was hit.  And I mean HIT.  I thought another diver had kicked my right arm.  After the hit, he circled me and flared his gill plates at me to drive me off.  Its a good thing they don't know what it means when someone laughs at them.  I almost spit my reg out...

 

Dave headed off and Pieter and I drove over to Alki Pipeline to meet up with Brian.  Unfortunately we were late and as we were pulling up Brian turned left to leave.  We couldn't catch up to him so we went back to Cove 2 for a second dive.

 

Dive 2 was another good one.  We found a couple of small decorated warbonnets and two horned shrimp.  The octo under HB is closer than earlier this year and I think I got some better photso and video. A harbor seal swam by.  Well this is not news at Cove 2, what was different was the he was moving slowly and nosing around the HB.  I was able to shoot a really long video clip that included more than just his butt which is what I usually get. 

 

Water temp was about 45 and we were getting cold by the end of dive 2.