Pulali Point + Brinnon Pinnacle

[CaptnJack]

5 of us tried out Pulali Point over in Hood Canal last Saturday. None of us had been there before. Not bad although the wall petered out below about 145ft. Brian, Jeanna, and myself scootered down to 190ft to check it out. Lots and lots of squat lobsters and shrimp but not much else down there. Brian found a red bortula though, that was really cool. Huge octo in a cave shallower too. One cloud sponge was found around 140ft. Average depth ended up being 150ft-ish so we only had 30mins of deco. We scootered the wall portions on deco, it was fun looking down and imagining an abyss below but knowing it only went to 140ft lol.

Doug and Kirk aimed a bit shallower (160ft-ish max I think). Not really a great tech diving wall, better for 25/25 profiles if that.

We monkey dove the Brinnon Pinnacle afterwards which was wicked cool. Max depth 75ft, 45mins, lots of black, some blue, yellowtail, Puget Sound, and vermillion rockfish, some lemon peel nudis, and 2 wolf eels.

Other notes:
Left Seattle at 7AM (ugh)
Picked up Kirk in Fed Way at 8
Drove over the Narrows Bridge
The WDFW boat ramp at "Misery Point" was miserable! Talk about hassles loading and unloading all the gear on the beach.
2 dives
Jeanna's great chicken pasta salad for lunch
More boat ramp loading and unloading, doubles, deco bottles, stages to monkey with and scooters (4 Xs and a standard Gavin)
Rinse the boat
Home at 9pm (ugh)

I need to work on the videos at some point.

[BDub]

Like Richard said, Pulali is pretty boring below 140 - 150'. We saw way more on deco than on the dive. I haven't seen a red brotula in a long time. That was really cool. Literally, aside from the cloud sponge and the red brotula, all the cool stuff was above 100-120'. At 140ish, it turns into a barren gradual slope. Don't waste money on an 18/45 fill. Like Richard said, 25/25, or even just 32% is plenty for this site.

The pinnacle is an awesome dive, and a great monkey dive site. The topography is really cool, tons of rockfish and the vis was pretty good too. I really want to go back there.

The water was like glass on the way out and between dives. The wind really kicked up during the second dive, however, and made for bit of a rough ride home, as well loading the boats.

The ramp was so flat, and tide was so far out, we had to lug all the doubles, deco bottles, stages and scooters down to the water line, launch the boats, float the gear out to the boats and load. Tide was out even further when we returned, so we had to repeat the entire process in reverse, only with waves.

The "Let's not try that again" of this trip was using that boat ramp! If that's the only "Let's not try that again" I'd say it was a pretty successful day.

All in all, an awesome day!

[CaptnJack]

The "Let's not try that again" of this trip was using that boat ramp! If that's the only "Let's not try that again" I'd say it was a pretty successful day.

All in all, an awesome day!

Good point! "Next time" we should look into making a weekend over there. Use a better ramp like the one to the south at Triton Cove which at least in summer has floats. We could probably do Rosie's Garden from there as well.

[Sounder]

There is a pretty great ramp near Brinnon too - I have launched from there.

Glad you all had a great time, and I'm really pleased to hear Pulali is best on 32% but at the same time that means there isn't much exploring now with my recent training.

Did Jeanna take video?

[dsteding]

There is a pretty great ramp near Brinnon too - I have launched from there.

Glad you all had a great time, and I'm really pleased to hear Pulali is best on 32% but at the same time that means there isn't much exploring now with my recent training.

Did Jeanna take video?

Brinnon means fighting Highway 101 . . .

I think Richard got CSI footage, I imagine Jeanna took video of the Pinnacle. Of the two, the Pinnacle was pretty much tops. So much to see there.

[Sounder]

There is a pretty great ramp near Brinnon too - I have launched from there.

Glad you all had a great time, and I'm really pleased to hear Pulali is best on 32% but at the same time that means there isn't much exploring now with my recent training.

Did Jeanna take video?

Brinnon means fighting Highway 101 . . .

I think Richard got CSI footage, I imagine Jeanna took video of the Pinnacle. Of the two, the Pinnacle was pretty much tops. So much to see there.

That's a good point - I hadn't thought about it that way. Monkey diving the pinnacle sounds like a blast. How many times do you think you went around it?

[CaptnJack]

That's a good point - I hadn't thought about it that way. Monkey diving the pinnacle sounds like a blast. How many times do you think you went around it?

At the base? once-ish kinda depends, our max was 75ft on the SE side, more like 60ft the rest of the way around.
Near the top? maybe six times?
Its going to take me awhile to edit the video down. FUN dive with loads to see.

[BDub]

There is a pretty great ramp near Brinnon too - I have launched from there.

Glad you all had a great time, and I'm really pleased to hear Pulali is best on 32% but at the same time that means there isn't much exploring now with my recent training.

Did Jeanna take video?

Jeanna got (non-green filter) video. It was a friggin blast. We'll put something together shortly.

[CaptnJack]

I can recolorize in my editing software. Never actually done it yet, but on test clips it seems to improve the color balance. This is what I'm using: http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Video-editor.aspx There's aren't very many editors capable of working in *.mov format on a PC.

[BDub]

Jeanna's video is up

On a related note, Jeanna has adjusted the white balance on her video and they look much better. Much less green. This should be the last "green" video.

Enjoy!

[CaptnJack]

Guess I never posted mine, here it is