I recently reached the 4,000 observations milestone, confirming that iNaturalist can become an addiction.

The iNaturalist community is a wonderful group of people - over 300 have taken the time to confirm a species ID or several for my observations. I value the time that these experts contribute to making the data more accurate and useful. Going diving is a relaxation for me, an escape from the stresses of the dry world. It's nice to learn more about the creatures I see.

My dive buddy Wayne and I were given a demonstration of swimming skills by the true master divers of the Salish Sea during our last dive on January 18, 2022. It was great to be visited by the sea lions - they are graceful and surprisingly tolerant of us and gentle when mouthing fingers/hands/flippers.

I post videos from my dives on YouTube - the video of this sea lion encounter is at:

https://youtu.be/hQntZM73fcM

Yesterday, my dive buddies and I explored the sea life off Wall Beach. This is a shore dive site between Madrona Point and the log booming area in Northwest Bay, east of Parksville, BC, Canada.

We observed 2 small Puget Sound king crab, salps, crinoids, a Monterey doris, swimming scallops and other invertebrates. We also observed lingcod (and 3 ling cod egg masses), many quillback and copper rockfish plus 2 tiger rockfish, and kelp greenlings. I was buzzed by a stellar sea lion while swimming back to the entry point.

There is a steep stepped bouldery slope with some shallow walls at the deeper edge of this dive site, I will be returning soon to explore the deeper sections (my maximum depth yesterday was 108 fsw).

The video including some of our observations is posted at https://youtu.be/i5EK-kIR71I

On January 28, 2022, I made several observations of trojan and slime stars off Cottam Point. This Vancouver Island shore dive site is the best local dive site to find these two species. It is tidal current swept and has good bottom structure for these species. My dive was solo, it is easier to make observations when not having to pay attention to dive buddies.

https://youtu.be/230IiSuhS9U