Saltwater State Park jaunt-12/14
Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 11:19 am
I feel like I should have a bumper sticker that says "I survived the surface swim at Saltwater" would be my first comment. After that, it was a really good dive with lots of life on the new reefs and all around it. I was surprised at the size and variety of rockfish that have moved in here.
We drove up from Orygun about 3.25 hours. Paid the 10$ parking fee (!!!) and splashed. We knew "slack" was at 12:36 but it turned out later there is no real slack here and then spent a lot of time fighting the current out to the marker buoy. I'm in shape and after 1/4 mile swimming against the narrows current I couldn't swim any more and I had to stop before I puked so we dropped in about 60 fsw and immediately hit the remains of the tire reefs which were crammed with good size coppers and a cool bonus sighting of a sailfin sculpin. We then headed off towards the reef over the remains of the barge- pretty much totally crumbled but watch the sharp edges- then we hit the start of the "fingers" which consisted of small railroad ballast and as you got deeper turned into large rock with huge beams stacked on top. This is where we started seeing the big guys, ling cod, coppers, and quillbacks which are a very good biological indicator of fish community health. On the way back we saw surf perch, scalyhead sculpin, sand dollars, Lewis moonsnail, coonstripe shrimp, etc. very good diversity here. We were hailed by a gentleman on shore who saw our bubbles get blown off so he came down to see if we were OK. We did get blown off quite a bit swimming back, which seemed like it was about 10 miles long!!! Turned out he was Craig Williamsen (spp?) from WSA and he gave us some great extensive history of the construction of the site and some tips for next time... Such as: there is no current adjustment, and there really isn't a slack per se at this site... And crab in slightly above the buoys so that current blows you on them.
All in all, besides a huff and puff surface swim, a very nice dive I would do again. Most impressive colonization in three years. However: we were told it was a current sensitive site and a long surface swim. I will now verify it is indeed. Worth it to see the critters though. Afterwards we went to Redondo and had a fairly boring off gas second tank, not really much to see that day for some reason. I couldn't help but think how nice it would be to have the more semi natural structure at Redondo rather than the junk-but I know people love the junk so I'll leave that subject alone.
We drove up from Orygun about 3.25 hours. Paid the 10$ parking fee (!!!) and splashed. We knew "slack" was at 12:36 but it turned out later there is no real slack here and then spent a lot of time fighting the current out to the marker buoy. I'm in shape and after 1/4 mile swimming against the narrows current I couldn't swim any more and I had to stop before I puked so we dropped in about 60 fsw and immediately hit the remains of the tire reefs which were crammed with good size coppers and a cool bonus sighting of a sailfin sculpin. We then headed off towards the reef over the remains of the barge- pretty much totally crumbled but watch the sharp edges- then we hit the start of the "fingers" which consisted of small railroad ballast and as you got deeper turned into large rock with huge beams stacked on top. This is where we started seeing the big guys, ling cod, coppers, and quillbacks which are a very good biological indicator of fish community health. On the way back we saw surf perch, scalyhead sculpin, sand dollars, Lewis moonsnail, coonstripe shrimp, etc. very good diversity here. We were hailed by a gentleman on shore who saw our bubbles get blown off so he came down to see if we were OK. We did get blown off quite a bit swimming back, which seemed like it was about 10 miles long!!! Turned out he was Craig Williamsen (spp?) from WSA and he gave us some great extensive history of the construction of the site and some tips for next time... Such as: there is no current adjustment, and there really isn't a slack per se at this site... And crab in slightly above the buoys so that current blows you on them.
All in all, besides a huff and puff surface swim, a very nice dive I would do again. Most impressive colonization in three years. However: we were told it was a current sensitive site and a long surface swim. I will now verify it is indeed. Worth it to see the critters though. Afterwards we went to Redondo and had a fairly boring off gas second tank, not really much to see that day for some reason. I couldn't help but think how nice it would be to have the more semi natural structure at Redondo rather than the junk-but I know people love the junk so I'll leave that subject alone.