Pacific Spiny Lumpsuckers melt the hearts of formerly very serious divers

LAST WORD

SEAN PERCY

I’m not sure when “cute” took over my scuba diving life. It was sometime after I watched an octopus and wolf eel wrestling, but definitely before I launched my search for the elusive Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker.

Scuba diving used to be an exciting adventure – an underwater safari. Somehow, I’ve managed to turn that into the aquatic version of looking at puppies in a pet store.

And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

When my dad took me diving for the first time, my shivering, nervous 12-year-old self knew that despite the cold and the inadequate equipment of the day, my life had changed. I would go on to work in the dive industry, first on a fish farm, and later as a recreational instructor, and make it my favourite hobby. Until recently, it was about adventure and exploration. Discovering new dive sites; interacting with charismatic megafauna such as octopus, wolf eels and sea lions; taking new divers beneath the waves; exploring shipwrecks; reaching new depths – these were the “adventures.”

So how did I get to the point where, last month, I was poking around in the shallow eelgrass beds of Saltery Bay, looking for an inch-long fish that’s biggest claim to fame is that “cute” is the word everyone uses to describe it?

THE HIGH-FIVE CREW: Photographer-divers Anji Smith (left) and Sean Percy (right), and critter-spotter Helen Whittaker, ascended from a dark ocean night dive, ecstatic to have found a Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker.

How was it that, when the three of us who found the Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker exited the water, we were whooping and high-fiving as if we’d just ridden a moose across a lake?

I asked my dive buddies why we get so excited about a weird little fish.

“She’s so cute!” gushes Helen Whitaker, who spotted the first one.

Okay, let’s get this out of the way. Pacific Spiny Lumpsuckers (PSLs) are undeniably cute. Google “Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker video,” or check out the video from Victoria High School’s amazing marine program at vichighmarine.ca/pacific-spiny-lumpsucker/ and you’ll see why. They’re fish shaped like ping-pong balls, with undersized fins, oversized eyes and lips and a startled expression. They move around like drunken helicopters. How they survive in the fish-eat-fish Pacific is a bit of a mystery. They are cute. But there has to be more to it than that, right?

“They’re buzzing whizzing whirring little sea helicopters the size of Brussels sprouts,” says Helen. “They’re cuties.”

Yeah, but we’re brave underwater explorers, who just emerged from a night dive in the cold, dark Pacific. Surely we were seeking more than cute?

The cute Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker

Anji Smith, a fellow photographer who spent the better part of the dive trying to get one of these fish in focus, is giddy at the find: “They’re just so cute!”

Okay, maybe not.

When the first one was spotted, I heard Anji squeal into her regulator – or maybe that was me. It’s hard to tell where sound comes from underwater.

Our trio of lumpsucker hunters is not alone. Up and down the coast, divers head into the winter water in search of lumpsuckers and other “cute” critters. A quick browse through the Facebook group “BC Underwater Photo & Video” reveals a paucity of megafauna photos, and a plethora of pictures of petite PSLs and other tiny creatures, with nudibranchs (sea slugs) and fin-walking grunt sculpins (another “cute” fish) at the top of the list.

There are many reasons for this fascination with the “cute” underwater critters: The limited visibility in our nutrient-rich waters forces you to focus on what’s up close. Winter time diving is often, of necessity, night diving, and that forces you to slow down and really focus (figuratively and literally in the case of us photographers) on what’s in the beam of your flashlight.

There’s also a bit of a “been there, done that” factor with the large lingcod, herds of sea lions, and giant Pacific octopus.

As amazing as those creatures are, you can only watch so many videos of them before you feel you’ve seen it all. It would be like a friend returning from a trip to New York and all they could show you was pictures of the Statue of Liberty. Cool, but what was New York like? So we look for something we haven’t seen.

Until last month, I hadn’t seen a PSL. Another practical reason may be that stuff that’s small is easier to photograph, and underwater photography is notoriously difficult, with awkward equipment, current, challenging lighting, and particles suspended in the water catching your flash. Starting small makes even mediocre photographers like me feel good.

Perhaps, though, there’s something more in the hunt for “cute.” In a world filled with Putins, COVID, political division, mass shootings and natural disasters, a tiny little helicopter fish might be just the medicine we need. Of course, dunking our heads in the water is as effective as the ostrich sticking his head in the sand, and the Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker, while a nice distraction, won’t solve the world’s problems.

She surely is cute, though.