Strait of Juan de Fuca

[Cal71]

Well I just got back from a trip out to Salt Creek County Park about 10 miles west of Port Angeles. Great diving. On Saturday, we did two dives out off the east side of Tongue Point, making our way through masses of bull kelp. Viz was about 15', maybe 20' in spots. Lots of life everywhere--on every surface. Lots of colour (with a light)--I saw this amazing sea star that was yellow and blue and looked like a giant marshmellow candy... Crazy. Also, quite a few big sculpins that, I swear, my first thought was "scorpionfish!" (til I looked at my thermometer)... I few ling, but not much big fish. Schools of bait fish though--which are oh so much fun... Also big anenomies and fields of urchin... We stayed pretty shallow, maybe 45 ft max--so much to see... The surf entries were pretty easy, but exiting was a little tougher--this was in beautiful sunshine & calm seas, but at high tide, I was getting worried about my dry suit and the zillions of sharp mussels...

Got our tanks filled and went out again on Sunday. Tried Crescent Bay on the west side and had awful viz. Maybe 5 ft? Very shallow, with a sandy bottom. Exhilarating, but hard to follow your buddy through dense kelp--what is it about PNW divers that we all dive head to toe in black? One of my buddies had red fins, which helped alot... Anyway, couldn't see much. Didn't really enjoy it. Called the dive after about 20 minutes, and just rode the surf back into shore. I think we were supposed to do a much farther surface swim to the opposite point, but we bailed...

So, we took our tanks and decided to wash our gear in Lake Crescent. A freshwater lake maybe 20 miles away. WOW. Viz must have been in the 100' range. Not much living--a few gobi looking bottom fish, and a couple crayfish. One or two trout in the distance, and what looked like a salmon playing in my buddy's bubbles. But what a fun place to play. We had dolphin kick races and did cartwheels. We pulled out our 2/3 full tanks from our aborted dive just to spend a little more time playing. The depth just falls away so quickly. It's a huge basalt wall that just kept going down. We stood on a cliff edge underwater, let out some air from our BC's and did some slo-mo cliff diving. It gets really deep too... Dropped to 125' and still couldn't see the bottom. Very sharp thermocline at about 80', but light all the way down.

I'd still rather checking out the living things in the ocean, but for a PNW diver--100 ft viz is a real treat...

Anyway, Salt Creek has some nice camp sites--and some not quite as nice ones if you get in late like I did... Definately plan on going back again soon...

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Here's an entry I posted elsewhere after my only trip there (so far) ...

Ever since I was certified I've been wanting to dive Salt Creek. This past Friday I hooked up with some friends who told me they were going out on Monday for two days of diving and camping ... and asked me if I'd like to join them. As it turned out, I'm very glad I waited till I had some serious bottom time in my log book before attempting this site.

Located about 15 miles west of Port Angeles, this area is situated on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The topside scenery is beautiful, and the County Park provides campsites with spectacular views (why, oh why didn't I think to bring a camera). Wildlife (or camp scavengers, if you will) are abundant. Racoons will literally walk into your vehicle if you leave the door open, and the deer are very tolerant of people with cameras. The camping alone makes this a worthwhile place to visit.

But the real payoff is the diving, which is some of the most scenic I've yet experienced. You've got to be willing to work for it though.

There are several entries ... we used the one just east of a rocky promontory called Tongue Point. To get to the dive site we had to hump our gear down a steep set of stairs, then over rocks down to a small "beach" that was only slightly protected from the ever-present tidal surge. We carried our gear down first, then went back to the campsite to get into our drysuits. Looking at the surge coming into the two small inlets that would be our entry, we decided to help each other into our BC's on the beach, rather than attempt gearing up in the water. Getting our fins on was a matter of timing the swells, and trying not to get knocked over while bent down tightening a fin strap ... sometimes it worked, other times it didn't. But eventually we were all ready to go.

Then came the hard part ... starting the dive. Waiting for a particularly large swell, we dove into it as it began to recede, kicking for all we're worth to let it carry us though the narrow inlet out into the open water. As the next swell hit us, we'd relax and go let it carry us back shoreward like a piece of flotsam ... then start kicking again as it began to recede out. The most interesting part was that as the swells hit the rocks around us they'd churn up the water into an airy effervescence that literally reduced visibility to inches.

I quickly learned to keep my hands in front of me to avoid hitting my head on the rocky walls of the inlet (which were covered with just about every species of urchin that grows in the northwest). Although I'm starting to consider myself an experienced diver, this was something beyond anything I've ever done before ... very much what I'd imagine it would be like diving inside a giant washing machine. I realized I was working hard and breathing like a novice. My pulse was racing at well over 100 by the time we cleared the inlet (and who said diving isn't an aerobic exercise)!

As we got down below 15 fsw or so, the excitement leveled off to where I could appreciate what I was seeing. We were traveling through a narrow, rocky trench that was a literal collage of marine life in every imaginable color! Purple, red, and green urchins competed for space with pink hydrocorals, yellow sponges, and colorful mosses and hydroids. The water was fairly clear (vis was perhaps 30-35 feet on our first dive), and the sun was streaming down, creating an almost tropical feel to the scenery.

Once clear of the inlet, we entered a kelp jungle. Kelp stems were everywhere, and spaced too close together to avoid. So I had to learn how to clear myself when a stem would catch something on my BC or fin buckle. This proved to be not too difficult as long as you remembered not to twist your body ... which would only entangle you worse. At this point I realized that beneath all this kelp was a maze of little canyons and trenches with rocky walls covered in sealife. Giant anemones in a multitude of colors were on every available surface. White and orange sea cucumbers were abundant. Whole colonies of clown dorids were in the process of happily creating little clowns. And clouds of tiny shrimp and hatchlings were all around us.

This is a place where you need a good light ... at times the kelp canopy above can get so thick that it totally blocks the sunlight. Also, most of the trench walls are covered on top with kelp, so you have to swim beneath the kelp and shine your light upward to see what's on the walls.

Current and surge are constants, so you have to always be aware of what's around you to avoid becoming entangled or thrown into the side of a trench wall. Striped perch and kelp greenlings were abundant, but I only saw a couple larger fish like cabezon and ling cod.

At one point we entered an area that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen underwater ... I called it the "valley of hanging stones". I'm sure you've seen how kelp roots itself on bottom rocks. Now imagine what would happen when the constant surge and currents braid several kelp stems together, then the tide comes in ... the rocks are literally lifted off the bottom and suspended in the water. This particular spot had some rocks as large as a human head hanging suspended as much as three or four feet above the bottom. Some of the larger kelp braids had several rocks suspended in a dangling string or spiral pattern. It was surreal swimming around through a pile of hanging rocks!

Finally it was time to come in. This is an exercise to challenge the most experienced naviguesser, as there's simply no straight way to approach the shoreline ... and you want to come in at one of the little inlets or the surge will pound you into the rocks while you're trying to get out of the water. We headed back roughly southward as best we could through the kelp jungle. When we got to about 20 fsw ... and found a place where the kelp opened up to allow us to surface, we went up for a look-see. Then, taking a bearing on our desired exit point, we headed back down to swim beneath the kelp toward our desired destination. Repeating this process a couple times finally brought us back to the inlet where we went out. We then reversed the entry technique ... kicking like mad on the incoming swell, and relaxing (and holding onto kelp stems) on the outgoing swell. Finally we were back into the channel, and in shallow enough water that the effervescense literally took our sight away again ... riding the swells till it was shallow enough to stand up.

Once the fins were off, the four of us stood there hooting and hollering like a bunch of drunk high-schoolers! That was one thrilling ride. We did another dive on the afternoon slack, which was very similar.

On Tuesday morning, only myself and Kricket were up for trying it again ... the other two were muscle-sore from the previous day's exertions. So we headed out for a morning dive ... but this time the swells were worse than the previous day and after only about 20 minutes we decided to turn back. At one point during this dive, I got myself entangled royally. A swell caught me and twisted me around enough to entangle my fin ... then on the outgoing, it twisted me in the other direction, entangling my tank valve in another kelp stem. I was caught tight, and in order to disentangle myself from one kelp stem I was going to have to make the other one worse. I could see Kricket swimming toward my fins, so I decided to untangle my tank valve and let her worry about getting my fin untangled. I flashed her the OK sign, and twisted to undo the kelp stem from my back. Then I just relaxed and let her work loose the one that was now royally tightened around my fin. It pays to make sure you dive this site with a reliable dive buddy.

We ended our dive, packed our gear, and headed back toward home ... worn out, but happy with the exhilaration of the diving experience.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Cal71]

I should also note that I had misthreaded my inflater hose back on my BC when I last cleaned it out, so during my first dive, I had to keep shooting air every minute or so. It took me a little while to realize I had a problem because all the surge and the fact that we were constantly kicking made it hard to sense my bouyancy. Luckily, since it was so shallow, I wasn't really worried about air. But I did get a little nervous when we surfaced to pick our line back through the kelp and to the beach. I had a hard time staying on the surface. My dive buddies carried my weight belt in for me, and I huffed my way through the kelp... Tough dive! Suffice to say, I check my inflator hose connection religiously now.

Also, I took a little sea-sick pill--there's something very disorienting about flying around in synch with the kelp in the surge while the rocks and sea floor shift back and forth... It is challenging, but wow, what a fun dive...

Plus, it makes diving the lake afterwards seem SOOOOO easy...