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The Official Snorkeling/SCUBA Diving/Beach Looking Thread


animalmaster6

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animalmaster6

:welcome: to the Snorkeling, SCUBA Diving, and Beach Looking thread!

 

Post what you found and pictures if possible!

 

 

I went snorkeling for the first time ever twice in the past couple of days.

Here's some of the stuff you would find in NE.

I found:

snails

hermit crabs

invasive crabs

some sifting crabs

Common Starfish

tons of macro algaes

Mussels

Fireworms

Sculpins

small flounder

these small green fish

sponge colonies

a large green isopod

 

 

 

I'll try to ID some species later.

 

Post what you've seen!

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I find all sorts of cool stuff down at island beach state park. For example: all sorts of fry and young fish, seahorses, hermits, scallops, crabs of all species including horseshoe crabs, sponges, macros and much more. There mostly what I find on the bayside. I see slot of neat stuff in the surf of the ocean as well. I actually have a couple snails, hermits living in my biocube that seem to be doing great. I went as far to bring a thermometer and refractomiter w me to the beach. Lol I'm a huge dork I know. The temp was about 82 in the pool I took them from and the SG was 1.024.

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animalmaster6
do you have a pics?

No I dont have any underwater camera lol

 

I find all sorts of cool stuff down at island beach state park. For example: all sorts of fry and young fish, seahorses, hermits, scallops, crabs of all species including horseshoe crabs, sponges, macros and much more. There mostly what I find on the bayside. I see slot of neat stuff in the surf of the ocean as well. I actually have a couple snails, hermits living in my biocube that seem to be doing great. I went as far to bring a thermometer and refractomiter w me to the beach. Lol I'm a huge dork I know.

 

I find all sorts of cool stuff down at island beach state park. For example: all sorts of fry and young fish, seahorses, hermits, scallops, crabs of all species including horseshoe crabs, sponges, macros and much more. There mostly what I find on the bayside. I see slot of neat stuff in the surf of the ocean as well. I actually have a couple snails, hermits living in my biocube that seem to be doing great. I went as far to bring a thermometer and refractomiter w me to the beach. Lol I'm a huge dork I know. The temp was about 82 in the pool I took them from and the SG was 1.024.

 

Nice, there were tons of fish fry when I went snorkeling. It was like a cloud. Cool stuff.

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I go diving a lot and have just bought a housing from my canon g10. While I have not been diving with the new housing yet, I do have some pics taken with underwater disposable cameras.

Scuba in Hawaii

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Beach Dive in Santa Barbara

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AquaticEngineer
I find all sorts of cool stuff down at island beach state park. For example: all sorts of fry and young fish, SEAHORSES, hermits, scallops, crabs of all species including horseshoe crabs, sponges, macros and much more.......

 

Oh really........

 

How difficult might it be for you to send some seahorses my way ;)

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animalmaster6
I go diving a lot and have just bought a housing from my canon g10. While I have not been diving with the new housing yet, I do have some pics taken with underwater disposable cameras.

Scuba in Hawaii

[

That's awesome. Really cool stuff

 

Go diving, you'll love it.

 

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I want to get SCUBA certified. I believe SCUBA gear is really expensive though.

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AquaticEngineer
I want to get SCUBA certified. I believe SCUBA gear is really expensive though.

 

If you want to buy it all yes, start out by just renting it unless you know you are going to be going out diving on a regular basis.

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Do it! It doesn't have to be expensive, as long as you do your research. Also, be careful about which company you get certified with - PADI is the way to go, but I think NAUI is good too. DO NOT get SSI certified though, it's way more expensive and no better. I happen to know two of the three people who started SSI, and I can tell you from experience (I'm SSI certified as well), that it is the wrong path to take. You should definitely get certified though!!! It's so awesome!

 

Anyway, here's my list - not everything, of course, but a few. The first two are technically in tidepools, but... well, you can just deal. :P

 

Invasive lionfish in Mexico :( . The dive shop we rented from had an awesome lionfish cookbook though! They're trying to teach locals how to catch and prep them safely to try to reduce numbers, since they have no natural predators. Pretty cool!

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A CRAZY green xanthogrammica in nor cal.

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These are from a couple dives in Monterey

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And this last one is from the side of a dock in Charleston, OR

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Other notable sightings include a big nurse shark, baby horned sharks (which are ADORABLE), a pair of dolphins teaching their baby to hunt with a school of jacks (which was also ADORABLE), but, alas, no pictures on this computer. So yeah, GET CERTIFIED!

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animalmaster6

Jamie- That's some awesome stuff you found. Love the goby!! I really want to get certified haha.

 

If you want to buy it all yes, start out by just renting it unless you know you are going to be going out diving on a regular basis.

I plan on renting at first. My friend's dad knows a teacher so that's good.

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After renting for a while, if you decide you want to buy your own gear, you can save a lot of money if you carefully buy used gear. SCUBA diving is one of those hobbies that some people get into for a few years, but then find that they never dive anymore, and so they sell off all of the gear. If you do your homework so you know what you want, what you don't want, what fits, etc. you can save a fortune buying on Craigslist vs. buying new. Even if you rent, you'll probably want to buy your own mask, fins, snorkel, booties, and gloves, and if you live where people dive a lot, you can find most of that type of gear used too. When it's time go buy a wetsuit though, you should probably buy a new one, or better yet get a custom one made for you. Old wetsuits get stiff, and you want a nice stretchy one. Rental wet suits seldom fit right, leaving you either cold (too loose - lets water in) or squeezed (or both), so if you decide to get your own gear, diving will become much more comfortable.

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I would agree with a few things said here. I believe PADI or NAUI is the way to go cause thy are the most common, have the largest user base, and because they arnt crazy expensive.

Another word of advice, do not take your certification at a resort or something similar, as they overcharge by a lot. It may sound like a great idea to get certified in hawaii, but the same certification back home at a dive centers pools will be 1/2 the price (I was one of the idiots that wanted to get my cert. at a resort while on vacation).

Lastly, I believe there are a couple things to be said about buying some of your gear. As mentioned a wetsuit, like a dress suit, should be bought for your body-type and should fit well. Masks are similar in this way in that they all fit differently. If you want to get certified you should probably look into buying your own wetsuit, mask, fins and snorkel. The other stuff can be rented and is pretty much standard in size, etc.

Just my 2 cents.

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Oh really........

 

How difficult might it be for you to send some seahorses my way ;)

That might be difficult and not likely they'd make. The species by me in new jersey is erectus. They're a smaller species of horse that can tolerate a wider range of climates. While they like cooler water 60-70s I do believe they're found in tropical water as well. The problem w these horse is the fact that it's very hard to get them to eat prepared food. My uncle kept a few for a brief period of time unsuccessfully. They'd never make it past a couple weeks. So I'd imagine w shipping it be pointless to try. It would just be sacrificing fish for no reason.

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animalmaster6

Getting aggravated :rant:

 

I've been trying and trying to ID the sculpins and other fish but I can't find any good sites or info. Elasmodiver and Fishbase seem to only have sculpins from the Pacific NW.

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I haven't been to the beach in months!

But I'm going to a large party at the beach in Kona.

Where little kids catch random fish from the reef on their little bamboo fishing poles. What they usually catch is everything but an edible fish,

usually reef fish!

Maybe I'll get lucky,

heck maybe I'll find a zoanthid tidepool......

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