Roy White's Dive Log

What a great dive we had! Vis was superb at 15 to 18 feet. There were literally rivers of perch darting around like maniacs around through and between us. I almost got a little dizzy a couple of times as they flashed by. They seemed to be just sort of swirling in a circle and when you shined your light at them they would flow past in a frenzy like a current had them. We cruised out to the point first and enjoyed those big boulders and critters living out there. I saw a very large Red Irish Lord hidden away between some rocks (Either that or another species of Sculpin) We navigated over to the rocks next to the road after 10 minutes or so. Working our way down the rocks I spotted a starfish in a crack but, looking closer, I saw what appeared to be suckers further in. I rousted the starfish out of the crack and sure enough, a fairly good sized Octopus was in there. Jeff took a couple of photos, then I figured I'd try and enlarge the opening a little so we could get a better photo. Working carefully I moved some fairly large rocks so we could get a real good look at him. Encouraged by my success I took off a glove and reached in and allowed him to suck on my fingers a bit. No way was he coming out so after a few more photos we went on. There's an Eel I've seen at Netarts I've never seen anywhere else and I was hoping to luck up on him so that Jeff could take a few pics of it. I've searched the net and I think it is a Monkeyfaced Eel. He's a shy little guy that looks a bit like a dwarf Wolf eel but is darker in coloration and has a very distinctive ridge above his eyes. (Gary Hays swears he looks just like the old Cartoon drawings of "Sea Monkeys" that were on the back pages of superhero comic books in the sixties…) The Eel is VERY anthropomorphic looking, like a little old man all scrunched up. All it needs is a Briar pipe and it could teach political science at Yale.. But… I digress… He wouldn't come out and pose for a picture, so I sent Gary off to find a crab to feed him. While Gary was gone the Monkeyfaced Eel brought a podium and lectern out and began to pontificate at length on the Poetry of Walt Whitman… Finally Gary came back with a small crab. These Eels like their crabs prepared in specific ways so I broke the crab in half and offered it to him. You gotta understand that the Ramblings of a College professor on Whitman will bore anyone to death and the crab was begging to be put out of his misery so no big loss there!) The Eel came out a ways and gobbled it down and hopefully the photo Jeff took will be a good one. We finally cruised on after it became clear that the Eel wasn't going to tip us for our excellent waitering service! To our delight we found ANOTHER Monkeyfaced Eel AND ANOTHER Octopus! There are so many different Species of interesting critters to look at Netarts. Stuff I've never seen anywhere else! I love NETARTS!