Oceanside, Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay Snorkeling

A place for Oregonians to plan a car-pooling road trip, find a nearby diveable mudhole, and meet new local dive buddies.
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AquaticEngineer
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Oceanside, Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay Snorkeling

Post by AquaticEngineer »

So after taking a trip yesterday to Astoria to deliver a lobster tank I refurbished I got to go collecting and snorkeling all day :)

Best part was that the couple that bought the tank from me were AWESOME! The guy is a Coast Guard Rescue Diver, and his wife is a biologist that works for NOAA.

After showing us a pretty cool spot near the mouth of the Columbia River (that me and my buddy were to chicken to snorkel in) they followed me and my friend all the way down the coast to Tillamook to go collecting with us. I showed them a couple of my choice collecting locations so they could stock their tank when its up and running, and we helped them catch several species of gunnels and pricklebacks for her research. She studies stomach contents of birds, and sees lots of dead gunnels, problem is they are usually just bones which makes them harder to ID. So we caught her some lives ones that she can photograph, catalogue, and then photograph the skelenton once they melt the flesh off ( I know pretty morbid, but its for science ;) )

Byron (the rescue diver) has a go-pro on his dive helmet and was able to get video of a yet unidentified fish that was hanging out in a burrow under a rock. I suspect it to be a wolf eel, but he said it was more fish like. He's gonna get the video of it hosted on photobucket soon.

Super cool guy, he took home a couple urchins to eat and some mussels, and it was a race to see who could get their dive knife out first when we both spotted a good size scallop at the same time. ( He wanted to eat it, I just wanted it for my tank) I ended up being quicker, so the scallop lives on in my tank :rjack:
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spatman
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Re: Oceanside, Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay Snorkeling

Post by spatman »

Sounds awesome. I'm curious to know where the spot at the mouth of the Columbia is.

Also, I suspect your unidentified wolf eel-like fish is a Monkey-faced Prickleback. Here are some pics:
http://www.stripersonline.com/t/683363/ ... st_6373101
Image
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Beefcake
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Re: Oceanside, Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay Snorkeling

Post by Beefcake »

spatman wrote:Sounds awesome. I'm curious to know where the spot at the mouth of the Columbia is.
Me too! I've thought about jumping in along the breakwater inside the Hammond Basin, but I haven't found anywhere else down there that I'd be comfortable diving yet (I've thought about trying a live-boat dive to see if I can find any remnants of the Hudson Bay Company ship near the church hole on the Washington side, but the current never seems to slack for long and I'm sure that any wreckage left is under about 20' of sand after 150 years of shoaling).
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LittleGoat
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Re: Oceanside, Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay Snorkeling

Post by LittleGoat »

If you don't mind divulging your secret spots in Oceanside, Garibaldi, and Tillamook I know that I for one would appreciate it. I'm always looking for a good place to dive in that area since I spend a lot of time there with my family.
I am not a capricorn... I am a Seagoat.
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AquaticEngineer
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Re: Oceanside, Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay Snorkeling

Post by AquaticEngineer »

spatman wrote:Sounds awesome. I'm curious to know where the spot at the mouth of the Columbia is.

Also, I suspect your unidentified wolf eel-like fish is a Monkey-faced Prickleback. Here are some pics:
http://www.stripersonline.com/t/683363/ ... st_6373101
The spot he wanted to go was called Jetty Lagoon
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=astoria,+ ... n&t=h&z=15

Good call on the Monkeyface!! There are tons of Rock Pricklebacks, Cockscombs and other slender fish in the area that we did find.
LittleGoat wrote:If you don't mind divulging your secret spots in Oceanside, Garibaldi, and Tillamook I know that I for one would appreciate it. I'm always looking for a good place to dive in that area since I spend a lot of time there with my family.
Places we go are Twin Arch Rocks whic is just North of Garibaldi
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Garibaldi ... n&t=h&z=17

We also snorkel the seagrass beds near the docks in Garibaldi
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Garibaldi ... n&t=h&z=17

The other really cool place we go is in Oceanside, park at the Oceanside Beach State Recreation Site and walk North to the area near Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Oceanside ... n&t=h&z=16
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Beefcake
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Re: Oceanside, Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay Snorkeling

Post by Beefcake »

Nice. Thank you for sharing.

I'll have to take a swim at Jetty Lagoon to see what I can see. I bet there's good crabbing there, but I don't know what else is there (depends how deep it is along any rocky areas.

The area you call Twin Arch Rocks is what we've always called the Three Graces. I need to explore it more; I have heard that there is a channel to follow out to the pool near the rocks, but we somehow missed it and had to crawl back in over those sharp yet slimy rocks for about 100 yards. There are some huge clams (cockles) here in 20-25fsw and lots of small perch and greenling close to the rocks. It is easy to swim out too far into the main channel, and you'll know when you get there (the tide is rarely slack at this spot in the bay, and the current rips just outside this area).

I don't know anything about that spot in Oceanside. I assume you need pretty flat seas for this one, but I'll put it on the list to check out one of these days.
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LittleGoat
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Re: Oceanside, Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay Snorkeling

Post by LittleGoat »

AquaticEngineer wrote:
LittleGoat wrote:If you don't mind divulging your secret spots in Oceanside, Garibaldi, and Tillamook I know that I for one would appreciate it. I'm always looking for a good place to dive in that area since I spend a lot of time there with my family.
Places we go are Twin Arch Rocks whic is just North of Garibaldi
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Garibaldi ... n&t=h&z=17

We also snorkel the seagrass beds near the docks in Garibaldi
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Garibaldi ... n&t=h&z=17

The other really cool place we go is in Oceanside, park at the Oceanside Beach State Recreation Site and walk North to the area near Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Oceanside ... n&t=h&z=16
Thanks for the Google Maps. They help a lot.

The eel grass beds you speak of near the docks are exposed at low tide, right? Or are they the ones that are beyond the derelict pier?

At Oceanside, it is the rocky area that you have to walk around the small cape to get at, right?

Once again, I really appreciate this.
I am not a capricorn... I am a Seagoat.
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