Hey everyone. I am planning on going up to Scenic Beach State Park to camp and dive Saturday. Does anyone know of any boat dive sites on the East side of Hood Canal? I usually dive the West side but I am looking for new dive sites.
Thanks
Charles
Dive Sites on East side of Hood Canal
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Aquanautchuck
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Hi Charles,
The only dive sites I know of on the East side of Hood Canal are the Whip Garden and Misery Point Reef. If you look at the geology of the canal when you're cruising along in your boat, you'll see why almost all of the dive sites are on the West side of the Canal.
There is lots of cut rock structure and walls along the west side of the canal that were cut out by glaciers, etc. The east side is pretty smooth, with lots of gravel and mud, but not much in the craggy wall department. Check it out on your fish-finder and you'll see.
There are more than a dozen good dives along the West side of the canal, but you probably already new that!
Scott (Boydski) Boyd
The only dive sites I know of on the East side of Hood Canal are the Whip Garden and Misery Point Reef. If you look at the geology of the canal when you're cruising along in your boat, you'll see why almost all of the dive sites are on the West side of the Canal.
There is lots of cut rock structure and walls along the west side of the canal that were cut out by glaciers, etc. The east side is pretty smooth, with lots of gravel and mud, but not much in the craggy wall department. Check it out on your fish-finder and you'll see.
There are more than a dozen good dives along the West side of the canal, but you probably already new that!
Scott (Boydski) Boyd
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Aquanautchuck
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Thanks Scott, do you know the GPS numbers for them? I have heard of them but no idea where they are.boydski wrote:Hi Charles,
The only dive sites I know of on the East side of Hood Canal are the Whip Garden and Misery Point Reef. If you look at the geology of the canal when you're cruising along in your boat, you'll see why almost all of the dive sites are on the West side of the Canal.
There is lots of cut rock structure and walls along the west side of the canal that were cut out by glaciers, etc. The east side is pretty smooth, with lots of gravel and mud, but not much in the craggy wall department. Check it out on your fish-finder and you'll see.
There are more than a dozen good dives along the West side of the canal, but you probably already new that!
Scott (Boydski) Boyd
Over the labor day weekend I ran my boat for about 15 miles down the East side of the Canal looking at the bottom. Does look like a bunch of sand and gravel. There were a couple of interesting places.
Charles
NW Boat Dives has coordinates. There is an unmarked rock wall to the south of the Whip Garden, about 100' south of the delta from the creek. Nice when you miss the whip garden :-) Depth maybe 85 to 95ft as I recall. ~20ft high
The dissolved oxygen is plumenting right now and there are dead fish on the beaches. Not a good time to dive the Canal, esp. in the south.
The dissolved oxygen is plumenting right now and there are dead fish on the beaches. Not a good time to dive the Canal, esp. in the south.
Whip Garden 47 26.68' N 123 05.08' Waquanautchuck wrote: Thanks Scott, do you know the GPS numbers for them? I have heard of them but no idea where they are.
Over the labor day weekend I ran my boat for about 15 miles down the East side of the Canal looking at the bottom. Does look like a bunch of sand and gravel. There were a couple of interesting places.
Charles
Misery Point Reef 47 39.425' N 122 49.975' W
Good luck finding new sites. We checked out several new sites recently and everything we checked on the east side was pretty tame.
Scott (Boydski) Boyd
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Aquanautchuck
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Thanks for the info. I will try to find them.
I found two on the west side over the last two years. Funny though on one of them I went to this year and Don was there with his boat. So much for finding a new site. I have no ideas what they call it but I call it Madrona reef. North of Triton Cove. I need to get the GPS numbers for it.
Charles
I found two on the west side over the last two years. Funny though on one of them I went to this year and Don was there with his boat. So much for finding a new site. I have no ideas what they call it but I call it Madrona reef. North of Triton Cove. I need to get the GPS numbers for it.
Charles
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Aquanautchuck
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Hey Scott, thanks for the heads up on Misery Point. I went up there with a buddy of mine Saturday. I really liked it and plan on going back. 
It turned out it was only about 1/4 mile by boat from the ramp and 1/2 mile from the campground I was staying at. What a great Artificial reef. The reef is made up of old roadbed and concrete bridge parts like Les Davis. We dropped down into 30' to about 6' of vis. A lot of small fish in schools and darter fish in the dying kelp.
As we went down to deeper water we swam into better vis at about 40'. Vis was about 20 or so. At about 55' we started coming onto the reef. Fish everywhere. They seemed quite active and numerous but this is more in the Northern end of Hood Canal. Saw all the usual suspects including a real large Vermilion Rock fish and a Dog Fish shark. This is a place I want to go back to again. There was plenty more we did not see when we had to turn back. We went to 75' and there were still a lot of fish hanging out. My buddies drysuit became a wet suit during the dive so we did not do a second dive.
Sunday my GF and I motored from just north of Seabeck Bay south to Chisim Pt on the East side looking at the bottom. All I could find was mud. Yuk, we went across to the west side and I took a look at the South end of Triton Head. I was able to see some boulders on my depth sounder. Has anyone dove there before?
Anyway, it was a great sunny weekend of diving and camping on the Canal.
Later
Charles
Charles
It turned out it was only about 1/4 mile by boat from the ramp and 1/2 mile from the campground I was staying at. What a great Artificial reef. The reef is made up of old roadbed and concrete bridge parts like Les Davis. We dropped down into 30' to about 6' of vis. A lot of small fish in schools and darter fish in the dying kelp.
As we went down to deeper water we swam into better vis at about 40'. Vis was about 20 or so. At about 55' we started coming onto the reef. Fish everywhere. They seemed quite active and numerous but this is more in the Northern end of Hood Canal. Saw all the usual suspects including a real large Vermilion Rock fish and a Dog Fish shark. This is a place I want to go back to again. There was plenty more we did not see when we had to turn back. We went to 75' and there were still a lot of fish hanging out. My buddies drysuit became a wet suit during the dive so we did not do a second dive.
Sunday my GF and I motored from just north of Seabeck Bay south to Chisim Pt on the East side looking at the bottom. All I could find was mud. Yuk, we went across to the west side and I took a look at the South end of Triton Head. I was able to see some boulders on my depth sounder. Has anyone dove there before?
Anyway, it was a great sunny weekend of diving and camping on the Canal.
Later
Charles
Charles
Hi Charles,aquanautchuck wrote:Hey Scott, thanks for the heads up on Misery Point. I went up there with a buddy of mine Saturday. I really liked it and plan on going back.
Later
Charles
I'm glad you had a great dive on Misery Point. You picked a good weekend to dive there. In the summer time there is often too much boat traffic to safely dive the site and the weather this weekend was certainly gorgeous.
We actually made it out to dive Duncan Rock at Neah Bay on Saturday, and I'm still smiling!
Scott (Boydski) Boyd
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