Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's Wall

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Diver_C
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Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's Wall

Post by Diver_C »

Looking for pointers please on diving China Wall (a/k/a Blakely Rocks), and Waterman's Wall. Two of us will be diving from a friend's boat, and the friend will be staying on the boat. (1) Do these two dives makes sense to do one after the other? (2) If so, is it better to do one before the other? (3) If not, what two dives do, which would include one of the named dives? (4) I take it both dives need to be done during slack, but any thoughts on don't dive if current is moving faster than X, of if the exchange is greater than Y, or anything like that? And (5) anything else I should know about, but have not asked? Thank you very much!!!

Rich
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by CaptnJack »

Waterman's:
slack before ebb ONLY, major downwellings otherwise these are no joke.
on a small exchange, I don't think I can tell you what's "small" off the top of my head. Look throughout the year and pick a day with exchanges that are <20%ile.
current station name is "Rich Passage, west end"
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/get_pr ... &footnote=

China Wall is not especially current sensitive. As of 9days ago the buoy was gone unfortunately. Maybe its just all twisted up. It is possible to anchor on the sand flats above and north, but tough to find it swimming downslope that way. Maybe do Norrander's deep or the Boss instead if the buoy is still missing.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by Diver_C »

CaptnJack wrote:China Wall is not especially current sensitive. As of 9days ago the buoy was gone unfortunately. Maybe its just all twisted up. It is possible to anchor on the sand flats above and north, but tough to find it swimming downslope that way. Maybe do Norrander's deep or the Boss instead if the buoy is still missing.
Would GPS coordinates, and going straight down work well enough if no buoy? Don't necessarily need to anchor, at least when dropping us off.

Thanks a lot Richard!!

Rich
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by CaptnJack »

Diver_C wrote:Would GPS coordinates, and going straight down work well enough if no buoy? Don't necessarily need to anchor, at least when dropping us off.

Thanks a lot Richard!!

Rich
Do you have a live boat? I'd drop a shot line just to the north of the rampart part of the wall (which is visible on depth sounder) then swim ~25ft south. Buoy, ~120ft of line and a few lbs of lead, I use old ankle weights. "Dropping straight down" who knows where you'll end up.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by LCF »

They actually make a nice pair of dives, if you do Waterman's first on good conditions for that dive. Waterman's is deeper, with the western portion of the wall starting about 90 feet (it gets shallower as you work your way east). Small exchanges are important, and even then, it can be a bidirectional drift. It's a beautiful dive, and well worth making the effort to get there when conditions are favorable. You can anchor in shallow water, and swim downslope to the top of the wall, and then swim upslope to do your deco. There is a lot of small life in the scattered boulders on the slope, as well as the more impressive stuff on the wall itself.

China Wall is not supposed to be current-sensitive, but that doesn't mean that there is no current there. It just tends to be mild. The buoy is gone; the anchor is still in place, but the rope broke about four or five feet from the anchor. You CAN find the wall, IF you know where it is, by using the depth sounder and finding the abrupt dropoff. Last time I dove it, we anchored shallow to the wall, and swam downslope to about 85 feet to pick up the top of the deepest portion of it, but I have also tried the same technique and done the "rubble inspection of the bottom of Puget Sound" dive instead.

The Bainbridge rock fingers, which are the other part of Norrander's Reef, still have buoys on them, and they also make a nice dive after Waterman's, or after China Wall. They are also not considered current-sensitive, but the last time I dove there (a week ago) we had such intense surface current that we darned near aborted the dive. The current died at 40 feet, and the deep water was still, although the viz wasn't very good. That site has three parts -- a shallow reef, a middle reef, and a deep reef. Each is buoyed. I have not done the shallow one, but the middle one is very pretty in good viz, with a lot of metridiums and attractive structure. The deep site is smaller, very dramatic, and has some of the biggest nudibranchs I've seen anywhere in the Sound.

For any of those three dives, I'd either have a boat tender who can run the boat, or put out a LONG current line. If you miss the upline, you can drift a long way from the boat. (Unfortunately, I know this.)

You can also do China Wall and the Boss -- the wreck of the Boss is really protected from currents. It's a small site and fairly silty, but it's a fun second dive.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by Diver_C »

Thanks everybody for the help. That sucks about the departed buoy.

Rich
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by CaptnJack »

Chain thick enough to tolerate rusting requires a really big buoy to hold it up. Rope wears on the rocks. Its not cheap maintaining these kinds of things, hats off to those who donate their time and $$ to stuff like this.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by LCF »

I've been seriously thinking about heading back out there with some thick nylon rope and a fender (which is what was on there before), because the anchor is still there and solid.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by CaptnJack »

Every March(?) and October (whatever weekend the clocks change) Fisheries Supply on Northlake Way has a swap meet. People bring their boating junk and sell it in their parking lot. This would be a good time to get ~100ft of used but servicable line. Stuff like 1" diameter is pretty expensive new and buying new is just overkill. It needs to be super fat to avoid chafe. Canvas firehose or similar covering on the lower 20-30ft would help too. The anchor at China Wall is more than adequate for most private boats. The lower reaches of the line just end up abrading on the rocks with the tides and (mild) currents.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by Diver_C »

Hello!

So we dove China and Waterman Walls yesterday, and they were excellent dives!!!! I was rather apprehensive about Waterman since we were approaching a slack into a flood, and all that's been said about waterfalls at the wall. We tied to the buoy, and jumped in, followed the line to the bottom (30 FSW) then headed off in a 330 degree heading. The downslope to the wall was very, very, very gradual until around 70 FSW, then it finally started downward with bigger and bigger rocks as the depth increased. The path was like a gully right to the wall. Ready to immediately bail if we came across waterfall currents, we never found any current, let alone waterfall currents! There were all sorts of marine life going on, including wolfies, and excellent vis (15 feet?). Don't think they see many divers, as my HID seemed scary to them. We explored all over the wall, then gradually headed back up the gully to the buoy. We hit a max depth of 123 FSW, and were down 46 minutes. Unfortunately, my camera's housing buttons were acting up, so only a couple pictures. Next time, will surface swim out before dropping down so less time and gas wasted on the gradual downslope. I was so glad we were able to do this dive without a current problem. I was really concerned. Now can't wait to go back for more exploring. There must be octos, and more wolfies. I can certainly understand why everybody raves about Waterman Wall.

Next dive was China Wall. Someone has reattached the anchor to a buoy, so we tied to the buoy, and jumped in. We followed the line to the anchor (I can certainly understand how it difficult it is to keep a rope attached to that anchor with all those sharp boulders it sits in between), then started exploring. It was the land of GIANT GPOs (they put the giant in GPO). They were everywhere with humongous suckers. Saw at least a dozen. There are so many places for them to be, but frequently in places which were not camera friendly. It was amazing how many there were. In the 70 to 85 FSW range the slight current was going one direction, so we drifted with it (we had a boat up top, so didn't really care if got back to the anchor), but when we were in the 50 to 70 FSW range, the slight current went the way we came from, so we just went with it. Vis was not as good (10 feet?), but my nav instincts were right on target as we ended up at the anchor at the end of our dive. So many octos!

Overall, great day above and below the water line!!! The beers on the way back to the marina tasted especially good. As soon as I got home though, I was done. It's not often I go to bed at 9 p.m., but it was very necessary, especially, since had the weather been better today, I would've gone skiing.

Thanks Lynn and Richard for all the information on these dives!! It would have been more difficult to do them without your assistance. Yay Northwest Dive Club!!! :partyman:
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by CaptnJack »

Cool beans sounds like you had a great day
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by LCF »

Glad to hear you had an excellent diving day! Waterman's is a fantastic dive, and I think it stays that way in part because you can't do it very often.

I'm amazed to hear about all the octos on China Wall. I've probably done that site 20 times or more, and have seen one or two on some dives, and none on others, but nothing like what you are describing. You hit a lucky day!
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by Peter Guy »

There is a buoy on Waterman's Wall now? Is it a WSA one?
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

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Peter Guy wrote:There is a buoy on Waterman's Wall now? Is it a WSA one?
I don't know. It was just a plain buoy, nothing remarkable. It actually isn't on the wall (the anchor sits at 30 FSW), but makes an excellent tie up spot for the boat, out of the traffic lanes, not far from the beach.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

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Diver_C wrote:
Peter Guy wrote:There is a buoy on Waterman's Wall now? Is it a WSA one?
I don't know. It was just a plain buoy, nothing remarkable. It actually isn't on the wall (the anchor sits at 30 FSW), but makes an excellent tie up spot for the boat, out of the traffic lanes, not far from the beach.
Yeah that's a private mooring buoy, oops
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by Diver_C »

CaptnJack wrote:
Diver_C wrote:
Peter Guy wrote:There is a buoy on Waterman's Wall now? Is it a WSA one?
I don't know. It was just a plain buoy, nothing remarkable. It actually isn't on the wall (the anchor sits at 30 FSW), but makes an excellent tie up spot for the boat, out of the traffic lanes, not far from the beach.
Yeah that's a private mooring buoy, oops
Oh, oops is right. Well, now I know for next time, and next time, will use the boat's anchor. No big deal. Thanks for letting me know. Don't want to make people mad.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by CaptnJack »

Diver_C wrote:
CaptnJack wrote:
Diver_C wrote:
Peter Guy wrote:There is a buoy on Waterman's Wall now? Is it a WSA one?
I don't know. It was just a plain buoy, nothing remarkable. It actually isn't on the wall (the anchor sits at 30 FSW), but makes an excellent tie up spot for the boat, out of the traffic lanes, not far from the beach.
Yeah that's a private mooring buoy, oops
Oh, oops is right. Well, now I know for next time, and next time, will use the boat's anchor. No big deal. Thanks for letting me know. Don't want to make people mad.
Personally I think that if you leave something out in public water it might as well be public. Give the owner 1st dibs since they paid for it. But alas that's not the case. In any case its pretty easy to anchor in the little bay to the west. Right around 45ft depth is deep enough to keep you off the rocks and not too steep to risk ripping it out.
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Re: Info please for China Wall (Blakely Rocks) & Waterman's

Post by Diver_C »

I just realized I have dove those sites before, but three years ago. I discovered this glancing at my photo sets.
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