I remember my first night dive.
We were down at Titlo Beach and I had this little teeny light and my beam of light was
just big enough to light up one little alabaster nudibranch.
I got this in my beam and I'm like, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen.
It's like crazy.
I didn't have any words to describe it when I got out of the water.
The process of shooting underwater can be somewhat physically demanding.
You're actually trying to hold very still in a sometimes very dynamic environment and
so trying to hold really, really steady and get that shot and hold still.
It's hard on the surface to get the shots you want.
It's multiplied by four or five underwater and then you can't talk to each other.
It's incredibly important to have a good team that you trust, especially when you're shooting
video because I'm focused on the camera.
If I have a leak in my tanks or something's going wrong, I know that they're right there.
To go do these dives, I need a dive buddy and sometimes that dive buddy is maybe someone
who doesn't have all the gear they need yet.
Well, I've been lucky because I had a dive shop and I could accumulate a fair bit of
gear.
Tanks, regulators, lots and lots of lights, more tanks, rebreather, dry suit, dry suit
underwear, cameras, housings for cameras, fins, lots of fins, masks, I think I only have one
snorkel.
What else do I have?
Lots and lots and lots.
When you get all the layers on when I get my really heavy undergarments that are twice
as thick as these guys, you feel like a little kid in a snow suit and you need your parents
to roll you to the water.
Because of the coal, the water actually can hold more oxygen and so the marine life is
incredibly diverse out here.
It's got so much life.
It's got the matridium anemones, those are the big white cauliflower looking guys.
You've got all the nudibranchs and different invertebrate marine life.
The world's biggest octopus, I mean really, how could I not dive out here?
I'm really lucky that I get invited to lots of different places to give presentations
to schools, community clubs.
I was at the West Seattle Rotary and I put on some video of a storm drain and they were
watching the video of this very large outfall and they were confused a little bit by what
they were seeing and they were shocked and the screen went black and I paused and I pointed
to the window and I said, that storm drain is right there.
When people describe that smell and that feel after a rainstorm, what do they say?
It's so clean, it's so fresh, but what they don't think about is where did all that go?
Everything's so clean because all of the trash went right out into Puget Sound.
Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to make the world a better place and I didn't
know how I was going to do it, I just knew that it was what I had to do.
Diving in Puget Sound has given me so much that it's kind of my duty to give back.
My role in this is to use the skills I have and help share what I see and help grow awareness
and give Puget Sound and the critters that live there a voice.
My name is Laura James, I'm a diver videographer and environmental activist out here in Puget
Sound.
