Yaquina Bay, south bridge pilings

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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JohnE
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Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:31 pm

Yaquina Bay, south bridge pilings

Post by JohnE »

Parked under the south end of the Yaquina Bay bridge and walked/waded to near the first big concrete footing. Around the footing it gets a little deeper, 10ft or less at high tide. Gravel/sand bottom, lots of gaper clam shells, kelp and eel grass.

Continued NW to the second concrete bridge footing. Between the footings it shallows up to 4 to 8 feet at high tide. Same gravel/sand/shell bottom with lots of eel grass and occasional kelp. Around the second footing it gets maybe 10-15 ft depth at high tide. This footing have extensive undercut under the footing with massive gaper clam necks poking up everywhere, very large red rock crab tucked safely far under.

From the second concrete footing we headed to the west end of the protective pilings. This shallowed up enough that part of it was wading (at +3ft tide). The pilings are deeper, 18 to 30 ft depth. A lot of old iron everywhere, you cannot trust your compass. My compass was off by 180 degrees a number of times. Proximity to the very busy boat channel makes this a potential disaster if someone lost their bearings and ended up surfacing in the channel with the boats coming through at speed. For that reason I'd say this is an advanced dive with risk.

Lots of buffalo sculpin waiting in ambush. Many dungeness and red rock crab. Around the 3rd (final for the south side) concrete footing there are metal fixtures accidentally dropped during bridge maintenance. Visibility was exceptional today so navigation was a whole lot easier. As I said before, don't trust your compass here.

After finishing the protective pilings to the east end we headed back south-east and came out at our entry point. Lots of wading and walking back to the parking.

Overall it was interesting but not a great dive location.

The north bridge pilings are far better but are reached via boat and also have the same risk.
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LittleGoat
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Re: Yaquina Bay, south bridge pilings

Post by LittleGoat »

Thanks for the report. I've always wondered what it was like down around those pilings.
I am not a capricorn... I am a Seagoat.
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