Underwater, no one can hear you sneeze...
Ease of entry: :thumbs_up::thumbs_up::thumbs_up::thumbs_up:
Density of life: :eyemouth::eyemouth::eyemouth::eyemouth:
Diving for intermediate or experts: :ircqnet::ircqnet::ircqnet:
Diving for beginners: :icosm12:
At the risk of exposing one of my favorite dive sites to the hoi polloi, today's dive was at the northwest end of the Hood Canal Bridge. Driving instructions from anywhere east:
1. Take highway 104 west across the Hood Canal bridge.
2. Wait seemingly hours for the bridge to close following the passage of a small boat.
3. Immediately after the bridge, make a right. Then another right, into Shine Tidelands.
4. Park near the boat ramp.
5. Suit up and walk in. Avoid the boat ramp, it's slippery. Use the sandy beach access (towards the bridge).
Aim for the large (house-sized) floating pontoon that supports the bridge, roughly SE. The bottom is mostly sand and shell hash, with the occasional geoduck siphon or escaped tire. At about 30' it drops off rapidly, then tapering to a gradual slope down to 85-90' (at low tide). There you'll find the treasure.
Another pontoon, sunken during a storm back in the late 70's (?), is adjacent to the existing bridge support, and the two are side-by-side, staggered like gigantic dominoes. The fast-flowing current feeds huge anenomes, sea stars, crabs galore, and a resident lingcod that could easily swallow a diver in a single gulp -- and probably has. There's so much to explore here that it could take a bunch of dives to even get your bearings.
Visibility was crappy, about 10-15ft, which is about par for this site. There is also the added bonus of occasional motor boats buzzing past, pieces of mono-filament and cable, and the constant rumble of traffic on the bridge above (gotta love those trucks) that add a distinct rhythm to the murky depths.
However fun that all may sound, this is not a dive for the faint-of-heart or bad-of-buoyancy. There's a lot of boat traffic in the area, so avoid surfacing in the channel. There's also entanglement hazards. But the big gotcha here is the current -- if you cross this bridge often then you know what I'm talking about: all the water going into or out of Hood Canal flows through this channel, so you absolutely must catch it at slack tide or you'll be swept away. Drift far enough and you'll end up in the nuclear sub base at Keyport where they will happily shoot you and put your head on a pike as a warning to other terrorists.
On the up side, my spring allergies enjoyed the respite of breathing filtered nitrox instead of moldy pollen balls, although there was one unsuppressed sneeze at depth that resulted in an amazing explosion of bubbles. It just doesn't get any better than that.
glenn
P.S.: I'd post pictures here except I forgot to check my camera before the dive, which, of course, means it didn't work.
Ease of entry: :thumbs_up::thumbs_up::thumbs_up::thumbs_up:
Density of life: :eyemouth::eyemouth::eyemouth::eyemouth:
Diving for intermediate or experts: :ircqnet::ircqnet::ircqnet:
Diving for beginners: :icosm12:
At the risk of exposing one of my favorite dive sites to the hoi polloi, today's dive was at the northwest end of the Hood Canal Bridge. Driving instructions from anywhere east:
1. Take highway 104 west across the Hood Canal bridge.
2. Wait seemingly hours for the bridge to close following the passage of a small boat.
3. Immediately after the bridge, make a right. Then another right, into Shine Tidelands.
4. Park near the boat ramp.
5. Suit up and walk in. Avoid the boat ramp, it's slippery. Use the sandy beach access (towards the bridge).
Aim for the large (house-sized) floating pontoon that supports the bridge, roughly SE. The bottom is mostly sand and shell hash, with the occasional geoduck siphon or escaped tire. At about 30' it drops off rapidly, then tapering to a gradual slope down to 85-90' (at low tide). There you'll find the treasure.
Another pontoon, sunken during a storm back in the late 70's (?), is adjacent to the existing bridge support, and the two are side-by-side, staggered like gigantic dominoes. The fast-flowing current feeds huge anenomes, sea stars, crabs galore, and a resident lingcod that could easily swallow a diver in a single gulp -- and probably has. There's so much to explore here that it could take a bunch of dives to even get your bearings.
Visibility was crappy, about 10-15ft, which is about par for this site. There is also the added bonus of occasional motor boats buzzing past, pieces of mono-filament and cable, and the constant rumble of traffic on the bridge above (gotta love those trucks) that add a distinct rhythm to the murky depths.
However fun that all may sound, this is not a dive for the faint-of-heart or bad-of-buoyancy. There's a lot of boat traffic in the area, so avoid surfacing in the channel. There's also entanglement hazards. But the big gotcha here is the current -- if you cross this bridge often then you know what I'm talking about: all the water going into or out of Hood Canal flows through this channel, so you absolutely must catch it at slack tide or you'll be swept away. Drift far enough and you'll end up in the nuclear sub base at Keyport where they will happily shoot you and put your head on a pike as a warning to other terrorists.
On the up side, my spring allergies enjoyed the respite of breathing filtered nitrox instead of moldy pollen balls, although there was one unsuppressed sneeze at depth that resulted in an amazing explosion of bubbles. It just doesn't get any better than that.
glenn
P.S.: I'd post pictures here except I forgot to check my camera before the dive, which, of course, means it didn't work.
