Cove 2 Divers Being Stupid

[lamont]

For what's it's worth...I know these two divers very well. They are frequent buddies of mine. They are both exceptional divers and this is the first time either one of them have gone inside the boundary area let alone all the way to the dock. One of them probably has 120 dives at Cove 2 alone, the other is a very experienced diver, but has dove at Cove 2 very very few times. I can tell you they both feel sick about it and simply made a mistake. They think they must've crossed the line where it bends towards the north.

I can assure you it was NOT INTENTIONAL. The first diver is very good at informing divers new to the site of the boundary area and this was an isolated incident where he simply screwed up.

confession time...

I swam right across the boundary from cove2 into cove3 a few months back. we had gone down alki express 1200' to the monolith (25 mins @ 100 fsw), then cut up to 30 fsw (10 mins) and swam back going from 30 fsw up to 10 fsw. It was high tide and we just followed a 10 fsw contour and wound up in cove 3. In retrospect at the 60 min mark (25 mins out, 10 up, 25 mins back) we should have just stuck our heads up to see where we were, but there was some current that day (the alki express was 'siphoning') and i was expecting it to take longer to swim back and just didn't think of checking our location until I noticed we were swimming past some pilings...

oops...

at least we didn't wind up smack in the middle of the ferry lane, or out where people were fishing...

 

[JackConnick]

With this being Seattle, I am willing to bet that we all paid for the stuff.
Someone please tell me was this my tax dollars at work????
Or do I need to thank some hard working dive club?

Yep, we have 8 new buoys around the fishing pier. We're still doing some finishing touches in the next few of weeks, but they're in place.

King County Metro paid for most everything. The City supplied certain aspects as noted by JD. Cement for the anchors was supplied by Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel. Misc "stuff" was donated by the Marker Buoy Dive Club. All was negotiated by Kathy Witman and/or myself. The same budget paid for the shower on the dock.

My thanks to all the divers involved: JD Rowe, Rhoda Green, Randy Williams, Norm Taylor, Kevin Casey and others. It wouldn't of happened without JD's help and he engineered everything. It was a hell of a long 12 hour day for myself. The city really came through with tremendous resources, not the least of which was a couple of Harbor Patrol boats and crew for 3 hours or so. Great guys, and it was fun to be on board and directing them (yeah, I got to tell the cops what to do!!).

This was a long time coming due to us getting into the middle of some licensing issues for the Park in general with State DNR.

A couple of additions to note:

One is that we are in the final stages of permitting with the USCG to place 3 large white can buoys (like the existing one in cove 2) officially designating the coves as dive sites and requiring caution from boaters. No, they won't have dive flags, but whatever the USCG will permit as "Hazard".

This is not only a good safety measure, but a HUGE political victory for divers, as now they can't pretend we don't exist. Look for these in the next couple of months, I hope.

More signs and so forth are being discussed, but we don't have any city funds available. We're looking around for $$, but it may take a while.

Future projects may include a reef ball installation in cove 1 to provide other areas of structure and habitat. We're starting to line up our ducks on that one, but permitting, etc, may take a while.

If anyone has any other dive sites or ideas for such within city parks property, simple improvements (and where we might get funding), etc., let me know (email me directly: JackConnick@Yahoo.com). I'm not asking for your favorite "sneak' sites, but maybe a place where groups can go. One area we're discussing is trying to develop other areas for divers to take some of the load off the coves.

One of the things I've learned from this is that it takes a while with the various agencies, but that they do respect volunteers and park users. Whining and being confrontative with them doesn't solve anything. Working with them gets their respect and help. Projects take a while to happen and it takes some table pounding sometimes, but the city can marshall a lot of resources in a hurry.

Please, please be good neighbors, watch your noise at night, keep the sand off the sidewalks (and out of the restrooms; instructors!) and gear out of people's way. Please use dive flags - feel free to tie them up to the yellow buoys.

There's a big load at the coves right now, but it only lasts a couple of months.

Jack Connick
Past President,
Marker Buoy Dive Club & Seacrest Ambassador

(feel free to repost)

 

[yukoneer]

Thanks Jack Connick for your efforts!

Today, saw 2 divers in the no dive zone again. They surfaced and realized where they were and hurried out of the zone.


I just met WADiverBob today, he guided me and Jackie to the honeybear, and it was awesome - my first giant pacific octopus sighting! Thanks Bob!

 

[Cold_H2O]

I dove cove #2 on Monday. The new stuff is great. very nice work..

 

[OE2X]

I dove cove 2 last night after a few weeks hiatus. Very impressive!!! Thanks Jack and all the other volunteers. You folks are terrific!!!!!!!!!!