Might be moving to Seattle -

[Daylonious]

Hello everyone!

My job might be moving me from the Texas sun to the Seattle rain - so naturally after checking cost of living changes, my main concern is HOW IS THE DIVING?

I'd be based in Seattle proper - and I'm thinking the first purchase will probably be a drysuit and training - I get the distinct feeling things are a little colder up there.

I noticed several posts on San Juan islands? What's within easy driving distance of Seattle? How about Wrecks? With all that shipping up there there's bound to be a couple scattered about -

I'm fairly recent tech diver (deco + adv. nitrox) and would be interested continuing that path (trimix courses) once I got up there...

Sorry for the firehose of questions - little nervous about leaving the Lone Star State....

D.

 

[TSandM]

Well, I've not lived anywhere else as a diver, but as far as I can tell, Seattle is one of the most perfect places to live and dive. We have a plethora of easily accessible shore-diving sites, some of which are usable no matter what tide or current. We have excellent charter boats to get to the sites where the shore access is impractical or inconvenient. We have an active technical diving community, although some of it is Koolaid-flavored We have tons of sea life. The downsides are cold water and relatively poor visibility, although from what I've read of lake and quarry diving, our waters might seem pretty inviting in comparison.

Access to the San Juans is often through Anacortes, which is about an hour and a half's drive north. Bob (NW Grateful Diver) has done a lot of charters up there. I have yet to pull that together.

One of the surprises for me about diving around here was that the drizzly winter weather is actually a great time to dive. You aren't sweltering in your dry suit before you get in the water, there aren't a lot of other divers to dodge, and best of all, there's PARKING!

 

[BDub]

I agree with TSandM....I think we're actually really spoiled with the diving we have here. Countless shorediving sites from Tacoma all the way up to Everett/Mukilteo with some great dive charters as well.

The San Juans offer some fantastic diving, and we're only 4 hours from Nanaimo, British Columbia.

 

[Darnold9999]

The only problem with diving from Seattle is that it is three hours further to drive to get to the northern end of Vancouver Island

 

[Nailer99]

I'm new, but, yeah, there's tons of great diving here. Plenty of fun, even right across from downtown, in West Seattle. If you're not a wuss about cold water, you're gonna love it! Check out the NW Dive club site in my Sig, there's some dive site info there- we just started collecting those, so there aren't too many yet, but it's growing.

 

[inked_diver]

You will love it. I highly reccommend the drysuit. Local diving in puget sounds is fantastic, san juans are pretty close and BC offers some of the best diving imagineable!!!!
Welcome

 

[huskychemist]

Yep. Lots of great diving here, and friendly folks on this forum to get you introduced to the dives. My website has some links to resources where you can find dive site reviews, etc. Orca Bait is a great group. Another you might find helpful is NorthwestDiver.com. And I'm still a wetsuit diver and proud of it! And I dove all winter. TS&M was actually right on...the visibility is better in the winter also. Who cares if it's raining? You're just getting wet anyway. And I never thought I'd say this, but the night diving is great, so the Seattle Winter Blues weren't as bad for me this year...as I didn't have to stay up really late to get some night dives in.

Great stuff here... And rumor has it there are a few barbeque places that almost come close to Texas BBQ...

Lowell

 

[sandman98007]

Come on up.... We got great critters, depth, and of great folks that love to dive..... what more could you want.......

Hope to see you around......

 

[Daylonious]

Doesn't sound too bad! I think I may be able to give up a little sun if it means getting a whole lot more diving in return.

Well, i should know in the next couple of weeks - and should be taking a few trips up there to get introduced to the account teams I'll be working with - with any luck I'll bring my gear up and sneak in a dive or two.

And you guys are right, coming from lakes and quarries in Texas, anything over 15 foot vis is going to be a dream as far as I'm concerned..

D.

 

[TSandM]

Who said anything about viz better than 15 feet?

On a serious note, if you're coming up, put up a post and some of us will show you some of the local dive sites. It really is a great place for divers.