Dec. 30th - Porteau Wall

[Sintax604]

Wow, nice map.

The gate leading to the walk-in campsites is closed but we parked in the closest drive-in campsite to the gate. The walk to the wall would certainly be mighty. Is it worth the effort?

 

[Robert Gillcash]

You can see the map pointing out where the wall is. Now cough up the money.

Cough Cough Hack Wheeze Cough.

That enough??

 

[TheWetRookie]

Now take note, the bay that you see at the south end of the map, the wall in on the inside of the bay on the left (looking at the map) right at the end of the point. The wall is short but goes to 130' and is shaped like a triangle so you will be zig-zagging back and forth up it.

Walk through the camp ground to get to it, do not surface swim, been there done that and won't do it again. If you sweet talk the ranger, you can drive in and park close to it. Bring donuts.

 

[Slamfire]

Mike is correct. I made this map last year before actually diving the wall. The location of the red pin is not exactly where the wall is. The wall is a little bit more to the south east -- around the point and into the bay. Here's what I wrote on my log for that dive (max depth 125'):

Wall is narrower than expected. We went down a little bit before the point and had to swim quite some time over a steep sandy slope in order to find the wall. Everything on the wall was covered with thick silt. Some lingcod, china rockfish and kelp greenlings.

As far as trying to win the good graces of the rangers beware that there is an older lady ranger that told us that scuba at the wall was not allowed due to dangerous boat-diver interactions. This, of course, is BS and I think it is also her own personal policy not sanctioned by authorities. What we ended up doing was booking a camp site for the Canada Day Holiday and setting it up as the diving base camp. The campsite was just next to the wall. We got no grief nor comments from rangers or campers even though our equipment was very much in the open. We took advantage of the campsite to make a surface interval BBQ and I even had a nap during the SI.

 

[TheWetRookie]

Good thinking slam on getting a site right beside the wall, sweet. The ranger we bribed was in her early 20's and she let us park right at the ranger's shack/house beside the water. So it was just a short surface swim to the other side of the bay and no surface swim back.