Whidbey Island, WA - need dive travel advice

[ewaiea]

I live in Honolulu, Hawaii and I'll be traveling on a family vacation to Whidbey Island, WA in October. While I'm there I'm interested in getting some diving in and getting my drysuit certification - I used to cold water dive in Minnesota lakes over 10 years ago and will not cold water dive in a wetsuit ever again

Whidbey Island Dive Center is the only place I've found that rents drysuits and teaches the course but I'm not sure if they do boat dives. I assume the better visibility is probably found offshore a ways but correct me if I'm wrong as I don't know the area well at all. Just need some advice on what to do - I'm not sure what the best course of action is. I don't know how many dives a drysuit course requires, if I would be allowed to shoot some photos while doing the dives or if it will all be spent doing skills, and whether or not to push for boat diving or whether shore diving will suffice.

Thanks all!

Eric

 

[TSandM]

You're coming to a good place to dive, Eric!

I asked my husband (an instructor) about the drysuit class, and we both think it's one pool session and two open water dives. I'd recommend NOT doing them off a boat; it's a good idea to keep the first ones somewhat shallow, as buoyancy control in a drysuit can be a little harder to master at first.

There are two regularly used dive sites that I know of on Whidbey. One is the Keystone Jetty, which is a FANTASTIC dive, but very current-sensitive. You need to get some input from the dive shop as to whether it will be a reasonable option during your stay. Another is the Langley Tire Reef, which is not current-sensitive, and I think is still available. They will be tearing it up to build a new marina, but I don't know when the work is planned to start.

There is also a shore diving site at Deception Pass which is a highly advanced dive due to extremely strong currents, and there is a great site at the Skyline marina in Anacortes, which is also quite current-sensitive.

At least two charter operations run out of Anacortes, the Bandito boat Naknek and LuJac's Quest. Those charters run up into the San Juan Islands, where there is some very good diving (but viz tends to be limited).

It is also a short ferry ride over to Port Townsend, where there are more shore diving sites, and it's an hour to an hour and a half down to the mainland, where there are a bunch of very accessible shore diving sites.

Let me know if I can be of any more help!

 

[ewaiea]

Thank you very much for your reply. You are right, there are many shore diving options and Whidbey Island Dive Center in Oak Harbor is going to get me drysuit certified - they'll even cover any rental gear needed which is nice so I don't have to rent a drysuit. They're going to do my classroom and pool in one evening and then the two open water skills dives the following day. The instructor said there's even a chance that on the second dive it may be possible to bring my underwater camera to get some photos of the critters. Kind of a big task to shoot all my underwater photos in the span of the last half of one dive only but hey, it's better than nothing.

Thanks for the guidance, I can't wait!

Eric

 

[fisheater]

Good luck and please post a report on your class and dives.

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[donooo]

I did the Dry Suit class out of Whidbey Island Dive Center. Great class, but the water is still cold.

adios don O