We geared up and started the "death march" all the way out to the end of the sand bar past the tower. The site consists of piles of boulders which we found at around 70'. To find the rocks, I would recommend making a line from the tower to the point of land directly across the sound, swimming out a hundred yards or so, and then dropping down. Watch the depth, as it gets deep pretty quickly. On this dive, we spotted several more ratfish, lots of rockfish and perch, crabs, and some of the biggest sea cucumbers I've ever seen. Clyde and I spotted a strange-looking orange-pink fish, about two feet long, and a bit eel-like. He later identified it in a book as a Red Brotula. We will definately be doing this dive again.

Dive 2:

Clyde, Dan N and I decided to do another couple of dives at KVI, since we liked it so much last time. On our first dive, we descended to around 90 feet, where the rocks seem to stop, then slowly worked our way back up. We spotted around a dozen ratfish on the flat areas around the rocks, several rockfish, and some large lingcod. Small schools of perch would swim by periodically, some small, some the largest I've ever seen. We did a very long safety stop, around ten minutes, both for safety and because there was so much to see in the shallows. I found a lions mane jelly wrapped around a plumose anemone, and a kelp crab wiggling around them both. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the kelp crab had actually captured the jelly, holding it with a couple of spindly legs, as it systematically devoured its tentacles.

Dive 3:

We quickly headed out along the sloping bottom. I felt the mild effects of narcosis around 110', as if I'd had one beer. We turned around at 126', where I felt as if I'd had two beers- not drunk, just a pleasant, peaceful buzz. By the time we got back to 90', the buzz was gone. Dan spotted a pile of crab remains in front of a rock, and found a huge octopus sleeping in a crevice under the rock. This was one of the largest octos that I had ever seen, and the largest that Dan and Clyde had seen as well. On the way back, Dan experimented with holding a rock crab one-handed, causing a humorous display of trashing as he avoided its massive claws! Clyde nearly lost his reg, he was laughing so hard. We did another ten minute safety stop, and found a couple more kelp crabs eating lions manes, and we spotted a decent sized saddleback gunnel.