Fish-Eye View: Narragansett Bay Teeming with Life!

By Mike Laptew

While diving off the Narragansett, Rhode Island, shoreline on June 18, it was evident that the underwater ecosystem was already in early summertime mode.

Sand eels were schooled up just beyond the breaking waves off Scarborough beach; tautog were on the shallow rock piles, feeding on mussels and crabs; schools of bluefish were cruising over the sandy bottom, and stripers were hunting the edges of boulder fields looking for scup or porgies.

Here’s a video look at some of the activity:

The video was shot while breath-hold diving, or free-diving, and I have left the ambient sound intact so that you can experience what I heard while on the bottom. If you listen carefully you will hear a crackling sound produced by tautog chewing mussels and trying to root out a meal off the bottom.