On the Thursday before the weekend I found out that my normal dive buddy wouldn't be able to dive over the weekend. I was bummed out because I was really looking forward to getting back in the ocean. I went diving in Clear Lake on Memorial Day weekend, but it had been nearly a month since I had been ocean diving. Being in Oregon it can be a bit trickier to plan a dive weekend. Usually if you drive all the way up to the Sound (about 4 hours each way) you want to make it a multi-day trip and you need to find a place to stay.
I was on short notice, but I thought I would call on the power of the internet and some social networking to see if I could organize a dive weekend for myself. First off I needed to find somewhere to stay. I would be driving up in my car, so I didn't have the easy option of sleeping in the van like we normally do. I called up Salem Scuba a local shop and found out they were running an Open Water class this weekend. I heard that there was a decent chance other certified divers would be there looking for buddies to group with. I got myself a room in the Yellow House with the group and and decided to take my chances. I figured if worst came to worst I could troll for buddies at the dive shop or enjoy a weekend hanging around by the ocean.
Luckily this being a great community that it is I found a thread with some people looking to dive early on Saturday. We exchanged contact information and planned to meet at Hoodsport & Dive Saturday morning. I drove up to Hoodsport Friday night and got myself all set up. On Saturday I met up with MZ, Winter, and Kitsapdiver from the boards. Kitsapdiver and I met a few months back when he was at the shop looking for a dive buddy, however it was my first chance meeting MZ and Winter.
We decided to head out to Octopus Hole and see if we could find parking. Fortunately, it was empty and we were set to go. MZ and Winter paired up for their dive and Kitsapdiver and I were the second team. We all four waded our way down to the snag on the waters edge and they headed for the wall. The visibility for the dive was very stratified, in a theme that would be common throughout the weekend. The upper 20 feet had fantastic visibility I would say 20 feet plus, once you dropped under 20 feet there was an abrupt thermocline and the visibility dropped to about 6 feet with a constant heavy "snow" of particulate matter, below 70 feet the visibility opened up a bit and was near 15 feet, but the thick upper layer made it very dark.
On one dive kitsapdiver wanted to try a bit deeper profile, so we navigated to the wall and then continued down the slope to 100 feet. There wasn't a lot to see there outside a few fish, sea pens, and sea whips, but it was a nice chance for me do a bit of a deeper dive and reacquaint myself with some slight narcosis and depth. Most the the dives I have been doing since I came back to diving have been in the 15 to 65 foot range, so it was a nice change of pace, even if wasn't the ideal site for it. Once we hit 100 we gradually worked our way back to the wall at 50 feet, then back along the top at 35, and a nice long swim back / safety stop at 15 feet.
The other dive we did a normal route along the bottom of the wall then back on the top and in, max depth of about 60 feet. The bulk of the wall was in the band of limited visibility, so staying together proved to be a real challenge. All it took was a quick stop to peer under a rock or a few seconds looking the other way and you could lose your buddy. I saw a few GPOs under some of the flat rocks along the wall as well as a variety of nudibranchs, rock fish, and sculpins. The shallows were thick with lethargic plainfin midshipman, some dead or dying and others lazy from their mating frenzy. We had a close call with a group of Lions Man jellyfish, but we did a quick high speed descent away from them and escape unscathed (that time).
Other than chatting in the parking lot I didn't get much of a chance to talk with MW and Winter. They had to get back to Olympia, so they did their two dives back to back and were on the road before we got out from our second dive. It's always nice to meet new dive buddies and great to meet people from the boards, I am sure we will all dive again in the future.
Kitsapdiver headed back to Olympia after our second dive so I was once again on my own. However, before we left we talked about meeting up on Sunday for a dive on the Barbara G near his house. With the great shallow water visibility it looked like it might be the perfect time for the wreck since its only in about 35 feet of water. When I got back to the Yellow house the Open Water students were just coming up from their last dive of the day. Everybody seemed to be having a good time and the sunny weather helped take a bit of the chill off of wearing wetsuits.
I met a few certified guys that were heading out for an afternoon dive. They were nice enough to wait for me to get geared up, unfortunately when turned on my air I was leaking air from my first stage body. I told them I would have to miss the dive and then went about trying to work out the cause of the issue. It turns out the body of the din valve was loose where it screws in to the first stage. Which caused a pinch or tear in the inner O-ring. Luckily the guys from Salem scuba were there and they broke out the took kit and got me squared away. However, I did resolve that I need to be carrying my own set of basic dive tools in my car. I was taking it for granted that I would always have the tool kit in my buddies van. I missed out on the afternoon dive, but I talked to the guys and planned on joining them for their night dive.
For dinner we were treated to a great barbecue and home-made meal from Allan and the guys at Salem Scuba and we topped it all off with blackberry and strawberry cobbler and ice cream. It was a great to get a real meal since I was mostly eating fruit and other snacks all day. After the meal we all sat around in the back yard and swapped stories.
Once it got dark we crossed the road from the Yellow House and descended the stairs to the water. It was very high tide and the water was up over the steps. I had never dove this location, but there is a map of the area in the gear room and several navigation lines strung between the various features. Visibility was about 10 feet as we swam across a bottom thick with sharp oyster shells and mussels. It occured to me this would be a good place to practice negative reinforcement buoyancy control, touch the bottom and put a cut in your dry gloves :P. We found the navigation line and worked out way out to the first small wreck. There was a huge ling code egg mass, but no sign of the Ling that laid it. The second wreck had a large Octo under it on eggs. The highlight of the dive for my was my first like Red Octopus sighting. As we were swimming along we came across it sitting out in the open on the bottom. I have seen many pictures of them before, but it was really cool to see in person, a fully formed octopus in miniature and vibrant red. We hovered around him for a while and followed along with him for a few hops as he glided away and then left him in peace. Overall we all had a great time and it was nice to check out a new dive site.
Saturday evening I got a call from Winter wondering if I wanted to meet up for some dives in the morning. I was happy to accept and glad to see my weekend was filling out so nicely. I got up early and hit the dive shop to get my tank filled. While there I saw a nice compact dive tool kit. After Saturday's events I picked it up and put it in my gear for future use. At 9 I met up with Winter and we decided to head out to Jorsted Creek. Neither of us had dove there before, but Winter had the location information nearly worked out ( milepost 121 and 321 are nearly the same thing right?
). After a quick pull over and check we found the spot. I had read some horror stories about the entry path to this site, so I was a bit apprehensive when we started down. However, it turned out to not be too bad, there was some loose debris on the path that made traction a bit tricky and some steep spots, but overall better than I expected and it has a nice well defined path. Winter had seen a dive map and had been told there was a wall north of the entry point at around 45 feet. I took a compass heading to give a reference for shore then we headed into the water. We worked our way North in pretty shallow 8 to 10 foot water, then after a while descended to 45 feet and followed the contour to the wall. At the end of the wall we came back south and descended to about 70 feet to see if we could come across any more structure. We didn't find the other walls at depth, but working our way back up we came across another group of rocks around 20 feet. The bottom structure in this area is pretty interesting, the contour steeply slopes away so depth is attained fairly fast once you get away from the flat shelf above 20 feet. There is a large variety of rock structures along the shore and throughout the area. The bottom composition is rocky, with a very large amount of clam shells and it peppered with wood and branches.
We saw the usual assortment of midshipman, painted greenlings, rock fish, various nudibranchs, and some cute little grunt sculpins. Once specie of nudibranch I hadn't seen before was brownish orange with a small tuft of antennae near its head. I also came across one large and startled Ling Cod hiding under some kelp. I called kitsapdiver to let him know that I was at Jorsted creek and doing a second dive and see if he was still interested in a later afternoon dive. However, he woke up and wasn't feeling well, so we called off the later dive. He told me that his map showed other walls straight out from the entry point, but that they were 110 feet and deeper, which was a bit deeper than we were looking to go on a second dive. Instead we decided to cover a similar area, but with a different profile. We descended to 45 feet and followed the contour to the wall. We explored the wall and along that depth until we hit our turn pressure, then we ascended to 20 feet and worked our way back to the entry point visiting the shallow rock formations along the way.
About halfway back to the starting point in around 20 feet of water I noticed Winter giving me the "Something isn't right" hand sign and pointing at her regulator. I prepared my first staged to donate, but then I realized she was pointing to her lip. Looking closely I could see a large Lions Mane tentacle laying across the expose skin on her upper lips. I carefully grabbed a hold of it and peeled it off, but the bulk of the damage was done. I looked behind us about 20 feet away in the murk I could see the culprit. To Winter's great credit she didn't panic or head for the surface, she just shook it off and we kept diving. I few seconds later I started feeling a burning sensation in the skin on my neck and I realized that one of the tentacles must have worked it's way up my hood to the top of my neck seal. I tried to open my hood and flush some water through the area, but it didn't seem to help.
As we were coming up from the dive we ran in to a group of divers from Capital Divers in Olympia who were just getting ready to head out. They were nice enough to give us the layout for the site. It turns out the first rock is nearly straight out from the entry point at 60 feet of water. If you continue on your same heading to 65-70 feet you will encounter the top of a large wall that drops off to 110 feet. After you follow that wall there is another wall in the same orientation that spans from a similar top depth down to 130 feet. My dive tool kit got a workout sooner than I expected as one of the guys in the Capital Divers group needed some work done on their first stage and I was able to help out with the right wrench. I enjoyed the dives we did at the site and it looks to have many more areas to see for a future deeper dive. I rinsed off my gear at the Yellow House, ate lunch, filled my tanks, and I was home in Oregon by 7:00 PM.
I had a great time over the weekend, got a chance to do five dives, three of them in locations I haven't dove before. I also was able to meet some really great new people from the boards and in the Salem Scuba group. It really shows what a great resource this board is for making new friends and planning dive trips. Also, it is really nice to see what a great dive community we have in the PNW where people are so open to meeting new people and diving new places. It was great meeting everyone and I look forward to diving with you all in the future.
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