Northwest Dive Club

Jess: My wife was looking from across the room as I viewed you pictures. She thought the lumpy was Corona virus.
-Curt

Jan: We normally stop at the park at Freeland to look out at Holmes Harbor when we visit the Island. Memories of being anchored there include beautiful calm evenings and some anxious windy nights. When we saw the mast of Family Affair, it marked our greatest fear. The characteristics that made it an...

Sixty: One of my assignments in the (Old) Navy was as crypto officer, where I used equipment very much like that. Cool find and a neat post.
-Curt

Sixty: You are right. Absolutely gorgeous. I had a similar experience a few years ago. I was alone on watch after midnight. We were south of Cape Flattery doing a yacht delivery to California. When I heard a splash, I stepped out of the pilot house onto the deck . A pod of Dall's Porpoise was riding...

Friends: You bring a great amount of pleasure to this old armchair diver with memories of Salt Creek/Seiku/Neah Bay. YE, each of your pictures is composed beautifully, any one could be framed and hung in my home. Wow. Jess, I love everything you do. I have yet to identify your duck, it is a differen...

Jan: I delight in your diving Driftwood Ponds. You don't have to fight the crowds and decompression is easy. The diversity of life you find there amazes me. To quote Yogi Berra, "You can see a lot just by looking." But you have to look.
-Curt

Jim Lynch wrote a novel about unusual critters washing up on the beach in South Sound. It's titled "The Highest Tide". A good read. I'm really old, and have been playing in the sound for over 60 years, and have never seen a sunfish in the sound. I've seen many off the coast, the last time ...

Chris: I just noticed this video, I love it for several reasons. Seiku (and Neah Bay) always gave me a diving the frontier feel. You capture that beautifully. Your focus on animals that are common there but not in the Sound was right on. The birds you feature are pelagic cormorants. This is a misnom...

ScubaJess wrote: ↑Fri Oct 09, 2020 7:26 am We want to go whale watching with you!!!! Fantastic snaps!!!! :-)

Jess: I would like that. I will PM you when we are planning our next trip. Probably after covid gets under control.
-Curt

Sixty: You continue to amaze me. I watched the video several times and can't determine what kind of anchor it is. It looks like it is stockless, but the fluke doesn't match the "patent" anchor which was the navy standard for the last century. The shank appears to have a square cross-secti...

Sixty: You continue to amaze me. I watched the video several times and can't determine what kind of anchor it is. It looks like it is stockless, but the fluke doesn't match the "patent" anchor which was the navy standard for the last century. The shank appears to have a square cross-sectio...

Whale watching serves as my substitute for diving at this point. I joined Westport Seabirds for their last weekend trips of the season. On Saturday, I immediately identified a spout in the distance as a fin whale. Of course, I was wrong. Another observer on the boat, Jordan Roderick, managed to get ...

Reading the habitat of the shrimp, I suspect that you are among the few divers to have seen it. Diving Lagoon Point is not as unusual as the Driftwood ponds, but it certainly doesn't rank as a popular dive site. I cherish your search for the unusual. I enjoy the sailfin sculpin as well. i remember t...

Jan: I tried to explain the seeming disconnect between tides and currents to a physicist friend by drawing pictures when he interrupts, "Water builds up behind the pass. It acts like a capacitor. The same solution to differential equations apply to fluid flow and electricity. I get it." Ob...

YE: No fishing lines, blue sharks were seen from the surface, like this one. I saw two mola molas. This one was really big. It doesn't take much to entertain me.
-Curt

Envy is a sin, right? Rats. I just sinned again.
-Curt, aka the guy who dived the Salish Sea for over 50 years without seeing a sixgill

coldfinger; Watching from shore is a challenge. Living on the water gives me a huge advantage. My best luck has come at Turn Point Light on Stuart Island. We were supposed to be docents at the light, but BLM (the federal agency, not the social movement) closed the Light station for the season. The w...

I keep whale journal, kind of like a dive log. Virtually every day this year, I have an entry of seeing gray whales from my home at Tulalip. I have ventured out from my Covid hideaway a couple of times. Once was to watch orca in Saratoga Passage near Camano Island. By now, most of you know we encoun...

I had the same experience with the north side of Ewing Island. My first dive there was magical, sponges, urchins, fish...I came back a couple of years later and layers of seaweed with little else. I suspect (hope?) that these are cycles. I will never know, unless somebody else dives it and reports o...

The constant change in the marine environment shows the value of visiting the same spot over and over. Divers who say, "I did that spot," are missing a lot. -Curt

I wonder if the Seattle team will adopt the tradition of throwing dead octopus on the ice.
-Curt

I still have several from my diving days if you want them.
-Curt

Reading the details of the amphipod makes his dwelling seem kind of yucky. Also, with the large range of tides today, currents in the pass are pushing 8 knots. Difficult diving. Thanks, Jan, for continuing to post.
-Curt

Gray whales have been spouting as regular as Old Faithful. During this Covid era, every high tide brings in two or three whales. Usually they are too far out to get any pictures. On the fourth of July one came in extremely close to our bank. Here is it moving toward our home. DSC_4281.JPG This shows...

Wonderful. You are embarking on life's greatest adventure. I distinctly remember the first time my son said, "Dad, those tanks are too heavy for you. let me carry them." It will come to you faster than you can believe it. Enjoy this time. It passes fast.
-Great grandpa Curt