EDMONDS — A striped sea perch glows gold and blue as it glides through the eelgrass.

The pink-and-white tentacles of a painted anemone wave in the water, ready to sting an unsuspecting fish.

A bright orange sunflower star, with all 19 arms, contrasts brilliantly against the brown sand.

The stunning color photos could be from a nature show on aquatic life in any exotic location — but they were shot just off the shore in Edmonds.

In “Critters, Creatures and Kelp: A Guide to Life in the Edmonds Underwater Park,” Dan Clements showcases his and others’ photos of the beings that call the park home.

Clements, 59, retired last year from his job as finance director for the city of Edmonds. He has been seriously scuba diving for about five years.

He’s been a photographer for much longer, chronicling his adventures in hiking, mountain biking, skiing and sailing around the world.

He’s also been diving in places such as the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, French Polynesia and the Galapagos Islands. The Edmonds park ranks right there with all of those places, he said.

“I was just so totally blown away by the park, it’s just amazing,” he said. “It’s a world-class facility.”

Clements gathered about 75 of his photos of sea life in the park, collected more from other divers, and self-published “Critters, Creatures and Kelp.”

The Edmonds Underwater Park is a regular destination for divers from all over the Northwest, and for others from even farther.

Few other parks like it exist in the nation or even the world, said diver Bruce Higgins of Shoreline, the park’s creator and chief caretaker.

“It’s often hard to imagine that there’s a whole other universe under there,” Higgins said. “A lot of the time it’s out of mind because it’s out of sight.”

Clements spends the first few pages of the book explaining how the park came to be. A diving area is called a “park” when humans augment the bottom with sunken boats and other wreckage to create an environment where sea life can thrive.

The Edmonds park was created in the 1970s when overfishing had depleted some of the species in the Sound, said Higgins, 58. The city set aside the 21-acre area just north of the ferry dock as a nature preserve.

Starting in 1977, Higgins led the effort to nurture the undersea environment.

With the city’s blessing, Higgins and as many as 350 volunteers have put more than 25,000 hours over the years building up the park’s features, according to Clements’ book. The park is roped off into a grid named after Higgins that corresponds with magnetic directions, north-south and east-west. The ropes are given names such as Enhancement, Bashful, Northern Lights and Telegraph. Some are marked with signs.

Most of Clements’ book is about critters, 101 in all, one page apiece.

They’re divided into nine categories, including “warm bodied critters” such as seals and human beings (divers), fish, shellfish, different types of invertebrates, and plants.

Showing all the different beings in the park is where Clements excelled, Higgins said.

Other books that have mentioned the Edmonds park either focus on the diving aspect or on one particular species or type of animal.

“He appropriately reminded everyone about the variety,” Higgins said.

Clements takes pictures with an apparatus that looks like a sea creature itself. A casing houses a regular camera, and two tentacle-like arms extend to the sides to hold cylindrical housings for flash bulbs at the end.

“Underwater photography is just incredibly complicated,” he said. “You basically have to make your own light.”

Clements, who lives in Everett and also is formerly the Snohomish County finance director, is planning upcoming dives in Hawaii and Oman, on the Saudi Arabian peninsula. His wife, Karen, snorkels in the warm-water spots while Dan dives, she said. When he dives in Edmonds, she sits on the beach or goes shopping.

“The water in Puget Sound is a little cold for me,” she said.

Clements paid $13,000 to CCS Printing of Bellevue for 5,000 copies of his book, which are available at several local bookstores and dive shops. He eventually wants the proceeds of the book to go toward supporting the park.

Clements wants to encourage people to keep Puget Sound clean, he said, “and be environmental stewards so we don’t kill off all this beauty.”

Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439, sheets@heraldnet.com.