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Dalco Wall Images and planning

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 2:38 pm
by Jeff Pack
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmmMuwsC

Down and Side Imaging of Dalco.

West Wall is more sheer, but bottoms around 150ft.
East Wall is less sheer and bottoms about 200ft.

Now if we can just figure out how to not get spanked by current on it. Diving into the flood didnt work. By the time I hit the water on a roll off from the buoy, came up, I was 50ft behind the boat. Slack was 1:54, splashed about 2:10. Seems like 3pm was when it seemed to settled down current wise.

Re: Dalco Wall Images and planning

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:01 am
by CaptnJack
I have always followed the NW boat dive's (Dave Bliss' book) recommendation which is to target slack before ebb. Always seemed to work for me and I never bothered to try another exchange. There are a ton of mistakes in this book, mostly he has no idea the difference between a quillback and a china rockfish :p And a few of the coordinates are wrong. But for its time it was state of the art

Re: Dalco Wall Images and planning

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:50 pm
by Jeff Pack
hmm, every web search for Dalco wall slack before flood, says just that. Dive into the flood.

I see your post for 2007 stating you dove the ebb, one hour before slack (flood). Might have to try that. An hour into the flood it was looking pretty good as we were lickign our wounds.

Re: Dalco Wall Images and planning

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:33 pm
by CaptnJack
I have always picked really small exchanges for this site - mostly because I've never had a tender. I just anchor by the old foundation in 25ft but I haven't done this site since the WSA buoy got installed. I question 12yo me saying "anytime" on the flood is ok. That seems rather bold in retrospect. The tail end of the flood exiting shortly after slack before ebb is what I recall doing. So for a 60-75min dive you splash 45-60mins before slack before ebb and exit 15mins after slack.


Surprised you got carried towards the ferry terminal, none of the current maps show anything going that way and its a good 400-700 yards to the east of the section I dive/dove.

Re: Dalco Wall Images and planning

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 8:18 am
by Jeff Pack
I hit the water about 15m after slack before flood, and got spanked. I was pushed west, not east towards the terminal. We anchored at the WSA buoy, which is ever slightly east of the old foundation. I wish we could say we learned something from this, but so far all we know is the timing diving into the flood was wrong. Oddly about an hour later, it seemed to settle down while we were shooting pictures during the flood.

Re: Dalco Wall Images and planning

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 8:21 am
by Jeff Pack
we'll have to try slack before ebb I guess.

Re: Dalco Wall Images and planning

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:36 am
by thorn124
Think I was talking to you or your buddy at point defiance boat launch on Saturday.. I was launching my 16' red Bayliner.

When I last dove dalco it was after diving sunrise on a flood slack. Then we ran over to check it out. It was a low exchange ebb and current wasn't bad. East of buoy mid wall current pushed us toward ferry. As we worked are way back current on upper edge of wall pushed us west. I'll look up the tides and times and post them. I only have three dives there two as a drift and one from buoy.

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

Re: Dalco Wall Images and planning

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 10:20 am
by Jeff Pack
that was me you were talking with. ty for any info you have.