Oregon divers storm Washington!!!
Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 8:30 pm
Ok, well it was only three of us... however...
If you work for the State in Oregon you have 14 [sarcasm]delightful interludes[/sarcasm]over 2 years called "furloughs"- usually on Friday, and it's a day where the State can't afford to pay you- so it's a mandatory day off. So why not dive on Furlough Friday? So all three of us squeezed in my Scubaru and made the I-5 shuffle northbound Friday. After hitting a weird pocket of snow and slippery roads in Wilsonville outside Portland (totally clear elsewhere) and picking up the third buddy in PDX we beat feet to join Tom Nic who generously offerred to guide us at Fox Island to dive the west wall as the current was not conducive to diving east wall. The viz was great until we got to about 60 feet and then it fell apart fast into maybe 10 feet. Being Oregon divers we were happy as clams with that kind of viz
and proceeded to enjoy the wall. I saw a pink tritonia (my first!) lots of really nice giant nudibranchs, Dendronotatus rufus mating, an octo squeezed way under the wall, and a strange helmet snail that looks like a nudi, and slender cockscombs, sea lemons... I was hoping for some stalking action by giants but it didn't happen that day.
We then parted ways with Tom and jetted over to Redondo and had a nice twilight/night dive there with about 15-20 foot viz and the tide was really low. We went down and looked at the boat, and then swam over towards the shades. It was defintely fish meat market in the eelgrass. We spent 45 minutes pawing through eelgrass looking for the Lumpusucker in vain but saw Hooded nudis, snailfish, flatworms, tubesnouts pecking at us, starry flounders, rock soles, and my new favorite cutest thing ever: red octopus. I have never seen them and they were out in force. I put my hand down to show scale as I was taking a picture and it crawled up on my hand. I was in love! I want one as a friend!
So, another 7 hour round trip dive to savor the flavor of the south sound but well worth it as it usually is. See you again in February!!! So much to dive and so little time to do it...
If you work for the State in Oregon you have 14 [sarcasm]delightful interludes[/sarcasm]over 2 years called "furloughs"- usually on Friday, and it's a day where the State can't afford to pay you- so it's a mandatory day off. So why not dive on Furlough Friday? So all three of us squeezed in my Scubaru and made the I-5 shuffle northbound Friday. After hitting a weird pocket of snow and slippery roads in Wilsonville outside Portland (totally clear elsewhere) and picking up the third buddy in PDX we beat feet to join Tom Nic who generously offerred to guide us at Fox Island to dive the west wall as the current was not conducive to diving east wall. The viz was great until we got to about 60 feet and then it fell apart fast into maybe 10 feet. Being Oregon divers we were happy as clams with that kind of viz
and proceeded to enjoy the wall. I saw a pink tritonia (my first!) lots of really nice giant nudibranchs, Dendronotatus rufus mating, an octo squeezed way under the wall, and a strange helmet snail that looks like a nudi, and slender cockscombs, sea lemons... I was hoping for some stalking action by giants but it didn't happen that day. We then parted ways with Tom and jetted over to Redondo and had a nice twilight/night dive there with about 15-20 foot viz and the tide was really low. We went down and looked at the boat, and then swam over towards the shades. It was defintely fish meat market in the eelgrass. We spent 45 minutes pawing through eelgrass looking for the Lumpusucker in vain but saw Hooded nudis, snailfish, flatworms, tubesnouts pecking at us, starry flounders, rock soles, and my new favorite cutest thing ever: red octopus. I have never seen them and they were out in force. I put my hand down to show scale as I was taking a picture and it crawled up on my hand. I was in love! I want one as a friend!
So, another 7 hour round trip dive to savor the flavor of the south sound but well worth it as it usually is. See you again in February!!! So much to dive and so little time to do it...