Some quiet underwater moments from this week of good viz: perennial fave ratfish, Taylor’s sea hares so massive they weigh down their blades of eelgrass, and so many jellies that the entire surface layer felt like a big soft invisible ball pit.

What’s the best fish in the Salish Sea, and why is it the Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker (Eumicrotremus orbis)?

Since July, we’ve been visiting this enormous GPO (Giant Pacific #Octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini) caring for her eggs in her den…

(1/5)

Today’s whimsical holiday sea-scene: Grunt Sculpin (Rhamphocottus richardsonii) looking skyward in front of Strawberry Anemones (Actinia fragacea). These colors look like they belong in the tropics, but they’re right here in the Salish Sea in 51F water! #fishmas #marinelife

…but apparently not. Bye, I guess?

Also ran into this O. rubescens who seemed like they had a side quest for me…

Melibe leonina (hooded, a.k.a lion’s mane #nudibranch) on my dive in the front yard today. This luminous loogie gulps plankton with rows of cirri on its oral hood
and, as you can see, the current is bringing plenty (and keeping us both rockin and rollin!) #marinelife

I’m especially passionate about the Pacific and the polar regions, and what a feminist and decolonial ethos of ocean exploration might look like.

Also get in touch if you like nudibranchs. Because I really, really like nudibranchs. (Here’s a Ceratosoma sp. from Lembeh last Feb!)

You can check out some of my publications and syllabi over at kellypbushnell.com, and see dive videos from here in Puget Sound at instagram.com/dr.kelpy. (Here’s a Giant Pacific Octopus who has been tending her eggs here for several months!)