Northwest Dive Club

Hello all. I just discovered this site.... It seems that a lot of folks from NW Diver have migrated over here. Anyway, I am more of a lurker than anything... I lurk about on a few boards. Every once in awhile I will chime in on a topic that interests me.

Can someone give me some guidance as to how to update my profile and upload pics and such?

I have been diving for 3 years now and have my PADI Rescue Diver card. My wife and I try to get out to dive about once a month over on the Oregon coast. My favorite site there so far is Waldport. I look forward to chatting with you all.

Steve

Welcome Steve!

You should like it here... the board's been getting bigger, just because, ...although that was never the goal. It is for the most part a pretty civil place with a great mixture of excited newbs and certified Dive Yodas with a bazillion dives that are more than willing to help out!

-Tom Nic

Nevermind.... I figured it out..

Thanks for the welcome.

Hi Steve. Welcome to the NWDC

Welcome... its nice to see other Oregonians on the site... and from Salem too! I've never been to Walport but would be interested... as well as Newport, Florence and any other Oregon dive site (no slight on the Washington sites- just closer!)

where in waldport?? off the seawall?? on the side of 101. I heard there is a wall that collects crabs at 60 ft

Here is a link to the description for Waldport: http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/USA_We ... /index.htm

It's called Yaquina John Point on the Shorediving.com site. We usually hike down the hill and walk across the beach at low tide. There is a wall there that drops down to about 45-50 fsw and if you swim inshore from there you'll end up in the "Crab Bowl." This is where most of the boats go to crab, so you will want to either tow a float or shoot a bag before you surface. When the crabbing is good, you can limit out fairly easy in one dive, most of the crabs hang out between 20-30 ft along the wall. There is other stuff to see down there as well, like rock formations, old crab pots, anemones, nudi's etc. I even found an anchor down there the last time I was diving. Didn't have my bag with me, otherwise I would have raised it. Oh well, next time.

Anyway this is definitely a low slack tide dive as it is a narrow inlet and the current really rips through there during the exchange. We usually get in about a half hour before slack and get a 45-50 minute dive in, SI just long enough to change tanks and drink some juice or something, maybe even a quick snack, then back in for dive number 2. The current usually picks up pretty good toward the end of the second dive, but if you are in the bowl, you can get into the lee and do ok.

The other thing to know about this site is that you will want to bring a dive light along. I am not sure why, but it seems that as soon as you drop below about 20 fsw or so, it seems as though the lights go out. It's kind of like diving at twilight, so a good light really helps.