We met at the Edmonds parking lot, and got onto a nearly empty ferry. It was quick 40 miles under gray skies to the Pleasant Harbor Marina, where we quickly unloaded so we could squeeze in a good latte before boarding the boat. Don and Mike, the DM, were their usual incredibly helpful selves, so it didn't take long to get everyone situated. It was me and Kathryn, and an instructor from Portland with his AOW class, so the boat was full, but there is SO much room for six divers on the Down Time.
Our first dive was Pulali Point West Wall. This was my first dive there, and it's a lovely site. Lots of very steep rocky terrain, and it looked spectacular when viewed from below, against the glowing pale green water. We saw a variety of critters, including one mated pair of wolf eels and several species of nudibranchs. Our max depth was around 65 feet, although the wall goes much deeper -- but Kathryn was shooting wide angle, and wanted to stay shallow enough to have light in the water, which was fine with me. We did a lovely 60+ minute dive -- Don arranged things perfectly, by putting the two of us in the water first each time, so the class would have time and room to get geared up and briefed, and nobody would be waiting TOO long for us.
We came out to sunshine -- the weatherguessers had been right, and the clouds had burned away. I still got cold during surface interval, because I kept my wet dry suit on, and failed to put on my hat, and I was a little worried about the second dive. Even a big cup of hot chicken soup failed to burn out the chill, but the second dive was to be the Pinnacle, and there was no way I was missing THAT. My friend Marcoux has filled my ears for years with stories of the huge school of vermilion rockfish to be found on this site, and as they are my favorite Puget Sound fish, I was going down to see them.
This is a really cool site. The rocks come up to quite shallow water -- the bottom of the buoy line was at 19 feet today. But the structure drops off to much deeper. We went quickly down to about 70 feet, which was where Don said we would find my beloved fish, and very soon, we encountered one or two. We kept swimming, and soon, there they were -- we counted 15 of the biggest vermilions I have ever seen. They were lazy and relaxed, right up to the point where I got close enough to photograph any of them :(
We circled around the end of the pinnacle and headed shallower, and encountered a literal FIELD of ling cod. Edmonds-sized ling cod. Virtually every rock on which one could perch, one had . . . I have no idea how there are any other sorts of fish at all there, given the number and size of the lings we saw.
But we also saw mixed schools of Puget Sound rockfish, striped perch, and black rockfish, who were beautiful silhouetted against the pale green light coming down. I busied myself shooting starfish, nudibranchs, and anything else that couldn't get away, and also amused myself for a while in a rather futile effort to shoot any of the hundreds of small jellies drifting by in the shallower water. Jelly-shooting requires three hands, because the camera can't focus on the jelly unless it's lit up, and if you are holding your light on the jelly and bring the camera into play, most likely the light slips off the jelly and the camera can't find it. So you drop the camera, get the light back on the jelly, and bring the camera up . . . rinse and repeat. It kept me busy, but it wasn't very productive of good photos!
One of the amazing things about this dive was that, as I had worried, I was cold getting in the water. About 20 minutes in, I began to shiver, which is not a good omen for a nice, long dive. But at that point, I reached back and switched on my Santi vest . . . and ten minutes later, the shivering had STOPPED and I was no longer cold. I knew the vest was good for delaying getting cold, but I had no idea I could actually REWARM myself while still in the water. Expensive as they are, those things are worth it.
Another solid 60 minutes of fun, and a really pleasant ascent up a line encrusted with mussels, through water so thick with little critters that I could have spent another ten minutes, just sitting on deco and watching the parade.
Back on the boat, we got out of wet stuff and climbed up and did the run back on the upper sun deck, which was, in fact, sunny and lovely.
I always think it's so FAR to get out there and dive off Don's boat, and it isn'tIt's 40 miles from the Kingston ferry terminal. We caught the 7:50 ferry and got to the marina before 9 (getting home was another story, but we all know how Sunday afternoons on the ferries can be). I think Don will see me more often, and I know Kathryn's up for a return engagement!
