This has always been one of my top two or three dive favorite dive sites in the South Sound, and it had simply been too long since I had done a dive here. DiverC and I met at Day Island Wall this afternoon to take advantage of the "flat" water - at least as far as the tidal exchange goes. Our last and only attempt at this dive this year was aborted after light failure and buddy separation - not a pleasant memory. When I pulled up to the entry I wondered if this might not be another one of those days. The wind was screaming out of the Southwest at 20 to 30 mph, there were whitecaps in the Narrows, and the surf pounding the entry was from 1 to 2 feet - not the most idyllic of conditions.
After a quick survey we decided to give it a go. If the surface conditions got too bad we'd go ahead and drop and swim out to the wall. I was slinging a 40 and Rich had his doubles so we had plenty of gas. We geared up quickly and began what was a surprisingly easy surface swim considering the waves, finally dropping around 4PM, 15 minutes before predicted slack. We descended in 10' viz and swirling schmutz. But the current was almost non-existent and the kelp was straight up. Nailed slack - Yay! However, without our HID lights it would have been miserable - viz was NOT very pristine. After getting a bit turned around and briefly separated we found the wall and began a slow drift North. Picture taking conditions were abysmal, so we just slowed down and started peering back into the nooks and crannies that make up this wall. A few pics are here .
We found these two young wolfies - as it would turn out the only ones we saw on the Wall. The dens were empty of wolfies.
What was lacking wolfies more than made up for itself in Octos. There were more than half a dozen very large GPO's in dens.
We kicked just about to the end of the North Wall then caught the current switch and drifted South to the deep wall, covering more of the wall in one dive than I've ever done before. We spent over 50 minutes on the wall itself. There wasn't an abundance of life - typical Winter I'd say - but what was there was gorgeous as always. Here's a couple shots that I liked.
We surfaced in the dark after abt 70 minutes underwater. All in all it was a great dive - one that I've waited way too long to do. Thanks for a great dive Rich!
Thanks Tom!!! :biggrin:
