Back Bay Update - You know you want to know
“Everyone” said there is nothing to see. “Everyone” said the water is still too cold. “Everyone” said the viz is horrible, brown like tea. “Everyone” said there is an algae bloom. “Everyone” was wrong.
After last weeks entanglement with the down line I wanted to try slinging my pony. And when I went to pick up my tanks the weight pouches for my cam bands came in so I could try them too and get rid of the double back plates.
It was really warm this evening, 80’s warm, and hard to justify putting on artic thermals and wool socks, but we did. And then we kitted up down by the water. There were easily 20 or 30 horseshoe crabs in the shallows near the beach, all paired up in tandem racing about. These things are like dang rabbits, they really need to be more discreet. We had to watch where we were stepping as we waded out, they were everywhere.
We dropped down and looked and ....... We could see. We could see pretty well as a matter of fact. The water was the clear green we all know and love and it was 57 F. I just checked my computer again to be sure and it was 57 F. Hmmmm
We took a heading out towards the pilings. I was not the keeper of the compass tonite (Hey! I found our way back last time!), clearer heads prevailed and so I followed. We passed several more honeymooning horseshoe crabs as the shoreline gave way to the “deeper” water. And then looked about to see what was new.
There were quite a few small flounder hiding along the bottom and one rather large one which begged to be poked and sent off in a cloud of sand. There were also hermit crabs everywhere we looked. Many of these were quite large and insisted on playing with us. And we of course obliged.
In many places you could see the turned sand where a large sand clam had dug its way in, the fresh bottom sand still a different color around the hole. There was a really big conch making its way across the sand. I have never seen one of these in the bay before.
The mass orgies of crabs were gone and they were dispersed across the bay floor hiding in among the algae and seaweed and the occasional rock or piece of cement. Size seemed to be the theme here as there were several rather large specimens which raised their claws to ward us off as we passed overhead. Several of these were of a good enough size that we made sure we were clear of them as we passed although I could not resist boxing a few rounds with one along the way.
The fields of teeny tiny starfish were gone and instead there were scattered lone starfish still smaller than the palm of my hand. I was also surprised to see a startled blue claw run from us carrying a much smaller baby crab under her arm. I didnt realize that crabs looked after their young like that. There still were not any bait fish swimming about that I saw but the moon snails were out. We came across one partially out of its shell. The body looked to be 3 or 4 times the size of the shell and way too big to fit back in. But when it was placed on Marks hand it started to pull itself inside and it just kept sucking itself in until it was totally inside the shell. Pretty amazing. Scattered about the sand were quite a few pieces of what appeared to be bowl shaped collars. They are actually the egg mass of the moon snail. The eggs are pressed together with sand particles and held together with mucous making the collar flexible with a feeling like gritty rubber. During the summer, the eggs hatch causing the collars fall apart and the snail larvae become part of the zooplankton in the water until they change into tiny little moon snails. You would never guess this by looking at them.
Not much of anything else was new out there, but it is coming to life. I will have to keep an eye on it. I am not sure how I feel about slinging the pony versus the bracket. And I am pretty sure I dont like the feel of the weight pouches as the weight is no longer evenly distributed and pushes down on my shoulders causing me to constantly force my legs down to adjust. I will have to try it a few more times to see if I get used to it.