7/9 San Juan Islands

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theonly_JT
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7/9 San Juan Islands

Post by theonly_JT »

Mannyland and myself had the chance to hit the San Juan's yesterday with LuJacs!!

Needless to say I was a little bit excited for my first dive trip in the SJI’s. Per usual I had to get up at the asscrack of dawn to make the almost 2 hour drive to Anachortes by 7:30am. It was a little windy in the morning but not enough to scrap the trip, just enough to get tossed around the ocean for about an hour on the way to Lopez Island. Thankfully Poseidon calmed his temper by the time we got to the site things calmed down and the sun was starting to break though the morning clouds. Unfortunately the tides didn’t get the memo and we had some solid currents to frolic in. Having seen 6 or so harbor seals on the rocks where we got in the water I was hoping for some seal encounter. No dice. The viz was decent, maybe 10-20ft but pretty chunky.

Off the bat I found some cool nudi’s I haven’t seen before and some nice looking rockfish. The cucumber were all over the place! Then found a hugeee wolf eel head tucked away in some rocks, superr cool. Somehow I didn’t get the memo that this was a “drift” dive and decided to fight the currents to try and take macro videos… I’ve had better ideas before. 45 min in the water and back on the boat.
This is when things get interesting… During our surface interval somehow a pin in the boats transmission snapped. Basically they had to manually, with a wrench, put the boat into and out of gear. No second dive for us…. So we headed back to the marina and once close, we got towed back to the dock.
It was a beautiful day to live in the Pacific Northwest, had an awesome dive, and got to spend a day with great people our on the water. Overall experience: 8/10
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"Whoa! Big ol' blue's one serious place, dude." - Crush the sea turtle
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ScubaJess
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Re: 7/9 San Juan Islands

Post by ScubaJess »

Great report, sad to hear about the ship, I hope they can fix it up soon.

It's always great to dive in the SJs, I love seeing all the color down there, they always have the best Nudies and Sea Cucumbers.
I've never seen a wolf eel up there, you guys are lucky!
Live Long And Prosper!!!

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Gdog
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Re: 7/9 San Juan Islands

Post by Gdog »

Hey, I think Rob Carter was on that trip too, he told me about the boat. Love that purple nudi!
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YellowEye
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Re: 7/9 San Juan Islands

Post by YellowEye »

Glad you got to go!
Which site did you hit on Lopez?
Yes, last weekend sucked for tides, this weekend should be good at the right hours! :)
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theonly_JT
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Re: 7/9 San Juan Islands

Post by theonly_JT »

Thanks all! I wish I had more pictures but I was more focused on not getting swept away.

They said it was an easy fix, they just didn't have a spare with them. I was super shocked to see a wolf eel too!

Sadly I'm not sure of the dive site.... I really wish I knew. It was off a little rockey island maybe a hundred yards off of Lopez Island. Wasn't very deep and had a small walls.
"Whoa! Big ol' blue's one serious place, dude." - Crush the sea turtle
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