Pulali West Wall & The Pinnacle

[gutholmj]

No diving today so I can actually do some typing. Anyway...

Saturday I jumped in on a last minute chance to get out on Hood Canal with Don and Krista on Down Time again. As I drove up the canal from Olympia, the weather was spectacular. The sun was rising and lighting the landscape in all shades of orange and gold. As I approached the bridge at Eldon, I was greeted with a spectacular scene with the bridge glowing in the sunshine, the snow capped Olympic in the background and a Raven chasing a Bald Eagle trough the arches of the bridge. Some days you can just tell that things will be good.

As the boat pulled out of Pleasant Harbor, it became apparent that the wind had kicked up quite a bit of chop and I quickly popped a couple of Dramamine. For the first dive Don took us to the Pulali West Wall where we were comfortably out of the wind and waves. I was originally planning on diving solo but my friend Lee was able to forgo his DM duties and we were able to dive together. Every other time I've done the west wall, vis was less than 10' and it is good at 10'. That day it was a spectacular 35+ and I had a chance to take in how amazing all the structure is. It's strange how different your perspective is when it's all visible at once. The first pair of wolf eels Lee found were sitting together in the most perfect pose. You couldn't get any better if they were paid models. So where's the pic? Well, every time I got within photo range they quickly retreated under their rock. I'd move 10' away and they would pop back out in their perfect pose. We did this dance 3 or 4 times and I finally gave up. With the great vis, I really wish I had a wide-angle to take advantage of the great scenery.

During the SI the wind and waves calmed down quite a bit so we got to dive the Pinnacle for dive #2. From the top of the pinnacle at ~35 fsw, you could see the shadow of the boat and clearly see the surface ripples where the sun was shining down. The school of black and yellowtail rockfish was really beautiful. There were the usual assortment of rockfish including lots of big vermillion, nudibranchs, crawly critters and monster lingcod. I only found 1 Grunt Sculpin, near the end of the dive and my computer was beeping away telling me I had 0 minuted no-deco so I took a quick pic and proceeded upslope. At the top of the pinnacle there were three really big, dark black lingcod that were apparently fighting over territory. As they beat the heck out of each other, one tried to use me as a human shield. Getting to watch them from a safe distance up the mooring line did make for a fun 20' stop though.

As usual, the comfort and service on Down Time was first rate.

[Biodiversity_Guy]

Excellent photos!