May 12 - San Juan Islands

Grateful Diver · Post by **Grateful Diver** » Sun May 13, 2007 9:53 am

Yesterday I did three dives in the San Juan Islands, in northern Puget Sound.

Our first dive was at a place called Davidson Rock ... just off the south end of Lopez Island. This dive site is a pinnacle, located literally in the shipping lanes, so it is marked with a large day marker. We arrived on site to find four fishing boats already there, so the captain and mate conferred about an alternate dive site. As we started pulling away, two of the fishing boats decided to leave ... so we decided to stay. A third boat left as we were settling in over our drop point. We dropped into the water and swam over to a kelp bed to drop down, as if you miss the top of the pinnacle you can find yourself making a free-water descent to depths that most recreational divers would prefer not to think about. Vis varied from 10 to about 20 feet, depending on depth. We descended to the top of the pinnacle at about 20 feet, and started downslope through large boulders and "slots" that got steeper as we descended. The substrate was covered in white metridians and orange pedal sea cucumbers. A steady current was flowing across the pinnacle, so we decided to just go with it and follow it around the rock, stopping along the way to take pictures of a rather interesting assortment of nudibranchs, crabs, and other inverterbrates. Lots of ling cod, rockfish and kelp greenlings make their home here, and we never lacked for "company". As we reached about 90 feet the pinnacle turned into a sheer wall that descended to who knows where ... by agreement we maxed our depth at about 100 feet and just followed the wall where the current would take us. As we made our way around the pinnacle, the currents turned variable, at times taking us up, down, into or away from the wall. We continued around ... keeping the wall on our right until we found ourselves having to swim into it ... at which point we began our ascent. Coming up the slope, we found ourselves on a spur that would not take us closer to the surface than about 40 feet ... so we shot a bag and made our ascent up the line. Interestingly, with the current carrying us as we ascended, we hit the surface about 30 feet from where we had begun our dive 62 minutes earlier. Awesome dive!

Our second dive was supposed to be Black Rock ... another pinnacle ... but with ling cod season underway there were simply too many fishing boats so we decided on James Island instead. Excellent decision ... that site was just loaded with life. Our plan was to max at 80 feet on this dive, but because we found so much stuff to take pictures of in the 50-60 foot range, we never made it past 60 feet. Like the previous dive site, nudibranchs were everywhere ... and many were busy making more nudibranchs ('tis the season) ... so we were busy snapping away. The highlight of this dive was a HUGE Puget Sound king crab ... one I almost swam right over without seeing because I was so busy taking a picture of a nudibranch. Current was milder here than at Davidson, so we didn't end up covering much of the dive site at all. The captain had requested that we limit this dive to 45 minutes, so we could catch the correct tides at our third site ... and we really tried, timing it so that we'd complete our 10-foot stop at just about 45 minutes and ascend in close to shore. But as fate would have it, just as I was about to give Cheng the thumb we spotted a lovely (and tiny) mosshead warbonnet on a rock, and so ended up taking another 2 minutes or so to take his picture. Ended the dive at 48 minutes ... with half a tank of gas each left over (we don't normally do that on San Juans dives).

Our final dive was Strawberry Island. Due to the currents, we were doing the inside, protected side of the island which doesn't have the abundance of life that you'll find on the outside, but it's still a very nice dive. When we arrived, there were a couple of fishing boats on the site, but they were easily avoidable. The crew was concerned about currents, but we decided that since it was a live pickup if it got too bad we'd just clip off the cameras and go with the flow. As it turned out, we had an incredible 60 minute dive ... and despite the fact that currents on the surface picked up to what the crew later told us looked like a river, down where we were it wasn't bad at all. On this dive, we didn't spot as much life as we had on the previous two ... but we did find two basket stars, which are always a delight to see and photograph.

Overall three awesome dives on a beautiful, sunny spring day.

Here's some pics from the dives ... http://photoshow.comcast.net/watch/hk8Jv3GB

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

runamonk · Post by **runamonk** » Sun May 13, 2007 10:36 am

Bob you and Cheng are the best! I wish we could have been on the deep sea this weekend but we couldn't make it.

Awesome pictures, such a delight to see.

gcbryan · Post by **gcbryan** » Sun May 13, 2007 10:37 am

You've got to like a day where you can see Basketstars,PS King Crab, and an Orange Peel Nudibranch all in one day! I've yet to see an Orange Peel Nudi outside of an aquarium.

Davidson is just off Colville Island by the way (I guess that's just off Lopez though).

fpoole · Post by **fpoole** » Sun May 13, 2007 10:50 am

Mann O Mann.. great nudies....

A lot on a day's dive...
Very nice...

Grateful Diver · Post by **Grateful Diver** » Sun May 13, 2007 11:42 am

gcbryan wrote:You've got to like a day where you can see Basketstars,PS King Crab, and an Orange Peel Nudibranch all in one day! I've yet to see an Orange Peel Nudi outside of an aquarium.

Davidson is just off Colville Island by the way (I guess that's just off Lopez though).

Two orange peel nudis ... one at Davidson and one at James ... $\:D/$

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Sergeant Pepper · Post by **Sergeant Pepper** » Sun May 13, 2007 12:44 pm

Nice pictures Bob. The nudis must have been out in force. I especially liked the pic of the Cockrell's Dorid.

LCF · Post by **LCF** » Sun May 13, 2007 7:04 pm

Ten to twenty feet of viz . . . sigh. Today in Cove 2, I think we had four. Maybe. Peter said if he could see my fins, he couldn't see my head.

Tom Nic · Post by **Tom Nic** » Sun May 13, 2007 7:21 pm

Wonderful pics, as always Bob! I love the increase in life seen at this time of year... even if viz isn't the best.

CaptnJack · Post by **CaptnJack** » Mon May 14, 2007 12:51 pm

That was a nice day, lots of cool critters. In retrospect, I think I'd prefer 2 longer dives (60+mins) with a longer SI (2 hours) as well. 3 dives was hard on the bod.

nwscubamom · Post by **nwscubamom** » Mon May 14, 2007 2:52 pm

Great photo show! I loved the basket stars and the diamond back tritonias. Haven't seen any in awhile!

- Janna