My January Underwater

This was an exceptionally cold January, so that limited my opportunities to get out diving. The water is always cold this time of year, but low air temperatures make gearing up unpleasant and further shortens the dives because I’m already cold entering the frigid water. That said, I did manage 3 dives this month and spent 115 minutes underwater.

Locations:

• 2 dives at Peirce Island in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
• 1 dive at Nubble Light in York, Maine

January 10 - Peirce Island (Portsmouth, New Hampshire)

Birthday dive! There was some miscommunication with about timing, so one buddy got a late start but he decided to come up anyway. It’s a good thing he did because my other buddy overslept so I would have been out of luck. We geared up and talked over our very conservative dive plan given the late start: we would wander down the slope a bit, if we felt a little pull, we would briefly try dropping down a bit more, but if it was still pulling we would bail. We submerged down the slope to calm conditions and densely packed nudibranchs. Most were Flabellina verrucosa, but I did find two Tenellia gymnota, a few Palio dubia in the shallows, and an Onchidoris muricata in the shallows. We hung around the slope for awhile taking tons of pictures of the best positioned nudibranchs and then started to feel a bit of a pull so we headed back. When we hit the shallows, we hit some strange eddies that tossed us around a bit, but we kicked through it to exit the water. Despite the short dive, chilly air, and very cold water temps, this was a great dive!

January 13 - Peirce Island (Portsmouth, New Hampshire)

The tide timing was a little later than I would have liked, but I just had to get back after the densely packed nudi fest on Friday. The air was 10 degrees warmer and it wasn’t anywhere near as windy, so gearing up was much more pleasant. On top of that, my heated undergarments were working properly so I was fairly comfortable for this dive. We entered right on time and slid down the slope into the hydroid field. True to form, it was jam packed with more Flabellinas than we could count. We managed to find a few “verillis” in the mix, which was a pleasant addition. Yet another excellent nudi safari at Peirce Island!

January 26 - Nubble Light (York, Maine)

Met up with the New England Aquarium Dive Club crew for some shore diving! Nubble was the spot and the weather forecast called for sunshine and a temperature approaching 30F. It was very much not that when we arrived - more like 20F, howling wind, snow flurries, and overcast skies. Our intrepid crew of 6 divers (3 in wetsuits! Ah!) geared up, hopped in our cars for one last warm up of our hands and feet, and then climbed down the rocks into the water. The visibility was nothing short of amazing. It was easily 30 feet, probably more like 40 or 50. We cruised out to the left parallel to the parking lot and found tiny Flabellina nudibranchs on most rocks, lots of segmented worms, comb jellies in the water column, and I even found a bubble snail, which was a new one! The sun came out while we were under, so it would have been great to capture a wide shot of jellies in the sunshine, but I had my macro lens and diopter. Surface conditions were much more pleasant after the dive, so I geared down and wandered around to see what all the birders were looking at. One woman showed me some harlequin ducks through her spotting scope, which were really cool to see.

Pictures

Without further ado, the pictures!