I just checked my log book and the last time I was there was in September of 2005.....I've been diving this site for over 2 decades and little has changed there over that time....until recently.
WHAT A HUGE CHANGE!!!!!
There used to be a large, wide trough extending from the edge of the drop-off down to the rock itself. That trough was always full of bark, shells and other debris. The walls of that trough were always full of little critters and rockfish. I didn't even recognize it today! Instead of one long trough there are multiple small ones extending down toward the rock, almost like fissures or cracks. All of them were also almost perfectly clean as a baby's bottom.....no bark....no shells....and virtually No critters to speak of.....it was like they were NEW.
The bottom around the rock has also changed, making it look almost as if the rock itself has been moved or slightly tilted. There was a LOT of silt on the rock that has not normally been there....I even saw a patch of sand on top of it. The rock has always been literally covered with brown/orange Zoanthids, so thick that it was almost like a covering of human hair.....no more! There are only patches of Zoanthids surviving on the rock and most of its surface seems to be bare.
The clay wall that extended directly north from the rock is also "missing in action". Whether it is destroyed or simply buried in sand is a mystery. In its place is a larger wall beginning at about the same spot, but extending downward in a northwesterly direction. We followed it down past 100 FSW before turning back to the rock. The wall itself is new and completely smooth....only a few shrimp and YOTY rockfish were on it.....nowhere NEAR the huge amount of critters that used to make the previous wall their home.
On our dive to the rock I saw a good sized Cabezon, some copper rockfish, and a few young Painted Greenlings....but absolutely NONE of the many Red Irish Lords I used to see there nor any of the Sailfin Sculpins that the rock has always been known for.
I am bummed......
I saw some things that might explain the bottom changes and damage:
There were a lot of individual railroad metal railroad tracks and spikes littering the area around and up and down the tracks immediately above the rock. Additionally, many of the railroad ties appear to be new. I suspect that a Burlington Northern track laying operation has recently been through there and that the constant pounding and vibrations have caused underwater bottom instability....after all, the bottom here is only thick sand and clay. It wouldn't have taken much of such intense vibrations to cause sand to "wash" downward over the upper wall as well as loosening the sand around what we now see as a lower wall. This would also explain the sand and silt we found literally on top of the rock itself and the new series of fissures descending from the edge of the drop-off. Such an expansion of silt and sand would also have negatively impacted the Zoanthid colony on the rock, literally smothering it, as well as forcing such critters as gunnels, grunt sculpins and stubby squid that have always been there before to depart for safer areas where they wouldn't be silted out and buried.
We also noticed that there is now a float at the dive site for dive boats. It is attached to a thick rope that descends down to a steel rod imbedded in the sand immediately above the rock. This, too, is fairly new as there was NO marine growth on the metal rod itself. I suspect that 100 Foot Rock has become a dive site for one or more of the dive charters in the area and the increase in the number of divers visiting this tiny site may also have had a negative impact on the population of marine life there.
It was Josh's first dive there and he thought it was pretty cool.....I, on the other hand, found it quite depressing, having seen it for years and years literally enshrouded in life. Calvin dived the rock last Summer with Maverick and Cuppie and he told me that it had an extremely high population of life at that time. The changes we saw today were recent.
Hopefully once things settle down the rock will recover and we will see the critter population return. I look forward to that day.
- John
