Don't Mind Me.....

[coulterboy]

FWIW - Edmonds Underwater Park is the largest junkyard in Puget Sound ... and how many of y'all enjoy diving there?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

So true. And I want to make it known that, Yes, I do enjoy diving BHUT. The big difference is, whether people look at this as a positive or a negative point is that, there is only one person responsible for what we see at BHUT, and that is Mr. Bruce Higgins. I don't know what hurdles Bruce have to go through before he can add another feature at the park. I bet it's a headache for him. The point is, nobody randomly dumps junk at BHUT. Ironically, BHUT is the home to many giant lings and cabes that otherwise you don't see anywhere else in any of the shore dives in the sound.

[CaptnJack]

FWIW - Edmonds Underwater Park is the largest junkyard in Puget Sound ... and how many of y'all enjoy diving there?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

So true. And I want to make it known that, Yes, I do enjoy diving BHUT. The big difference is, whether people look at this as a positive or a negative point is that, there is only one person responsible for what we see at BHUT, and that is Mr. Bruce Higgins. I don't know what hurdles Bruce have to go through before he can add another feature at the park. I bet it's a headache for him. The point is, nobody randomly dumps junk at BHUT. Ironically, BHUT is the home to many giant lings and cabes that otherwise you don't see anywhere else in any of the shore dives in the sound.

Bruce's program is basically grandfathered in. The fish are so big partly because its been a protected area since the 1970s. The park is good for some species and not so good for others. Its a very lopsided microcosm of puget sound with lots of predators and an unnatural paucity of prey.

[Jeremy]

I heard the majority of lings in Puget Sound were born at EUP. Don't know if that's true or not, but wouldn't surprise me.

[Grateful Diver]

... fortunately, ling cod eat each other ... and keep producing next year's dinner ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[CaptnJack]

I heard the majority of lings in Puget Sound were born at EUP. Don't know if that's true or not, but wouldn't surprise me.

That is true, they have high site fidelity i.e. lings don't disperse much.

WDFW actually dives EUP quite a bit. Its one of the only local, long term and readily accessible MPAs.

[Grateful Diver]

Getting back to habitat destruction for a moment. I just returned from Sechelt Inlet and 3 days of amazing diving. What was perhaps my favorite dive of the trip was a wall at Captain's Island ... cloud sponges by the thousands starting at about 60 feet and going well below recreational depths. They're not as big as the ones at Agammemnon Wall, but far more numerous.

As we were swimming along, we encountered a rope, angling down from above. Attached to the rope were dozens of large commercial shrimp pots. The shrimper had strung them, literally, along the face of the wall where the weight of all those pots were scything hundreds of cloud sponges off the wall as it sank to the bottom.

Here's a piece of the wall in its initial condition ...



... here's a piece of the shrimper's line, cutting through a cloud sponge ...



... and here's the aftermath of the damage ... we watched literally dozens of cloud sponges getting scythed off the wall as this line sank toward the bottom ...



The asshole shrimper had apparently just set these traps before we arrived ... thing is, this sort of damage is perfectly legal, and the shrimper really don't give a shit.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Jeremy]

That sort of damage breaks your heart as a diver...

[kdupreez]

Ouch!