Northwest Dive Club

Howdy

What's the strongest currents you've been in? (Drift dives not included)

How'd you handle it, what did you learn?

Saltwater state park. Ended up with two cramped calves. Had to pull myself along the bottom. Lesson learned, take a peek at the the tides before diving a current sensitive site.

Well i would tell you , but i dont have any pictures from the dive to prove it..

Day island Wall, South end.

^ Likewise. Day Island Wall just as we were coming over the top of the wall. Entered the water too late and got caught by the Ebb current. I just managed to make it to shore by hugging the bottom and kicking as hard as I could into the current. Fortunately I had left myself plenty of gas. The father & son team with me popped up out in the channel, and luckily got a tow back in by a nice boater.

Lessons learned: enter the water at DIW 45 minutes before slack and have enough reserve gas.

Deception Pass, by a long shot. Ripper of drysuits, mocker of divers...there are no atheist divers in a mistimed Deception Pass dive.

Hudson Point, Port Townsend. Not at the jetty; out at the actual point, near the navigation marker.

We got caught in a sudden ebb tide. There's no place to hide, nothing to grab, and the current accelerates as it exits the bay. We were swept out at high speed, while trying to do a slow ascent and finning hard to shore. After a minute there were no more reference points. We did a green-water safety stop somewhere in Admiralty Inlet.

There's large sand bar to the east of the point where the current dumps its sediment load after exiting the bay -- that's where landed, exhausted and disoriented. Thankfully not in the shipping lanes.

What did I learn? Sometimes you're just going. At some point there's no fighting it, might as well stay calm and deal with it once you're on the surface.

Warren Avenue Bridge receives my honorable mention for number two

Jeremy wrote:Warren Avenue Bridge receives my honorable mention for number two

Outside that, how is that dive?

Day Island x several. Early on when I was learning the currents there, later on when I was seeing how far I could push the envelope. The worst was when I screwed up and went in an hour late on a large exchange. That was entertaining.
On large exchanges for DIW I take a garden trowel for an anchor. Knives simply don't work, not enough surface area. There is damn little to grab on the slope from the wall.

Put your head down, get streamlined, keep close to the bottom (less current there), kick powerfully but try to keep calm and well within aerobic capacity. I've come back from the wall in modest current when I was barely working and a newer diver right next to me and 2 feet higher had big eyes and was working hard. Attitude and position can make that much difference.
Remember, most of the time you are really never terribly far from shore even if you have to make a green water ascent and then beach in someone's back yard. Awkward but you'll be OK.

Deception has the potential for a LOT more, but I try very hard not to get into that torrent.

Yeah, Deception Pass was #2 for me, and it could have easily been much worse. A crazy back eddy near the exit kept me kicking hard on the surface for an extra 10 minutes. And that was with a well timed entrance.


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Getting in at the wrong time at the Governor. Didn't get off the surface, couldn't hold onto the grapple's buoy, and speed 5 on a sierra was still scootering backwards. No bueno, no dive.

Learned to plan my own dives there, not listen to other people's opinions about when they thought slack was, and to wait. We almost always splash too early during a momentary lull that looks like the start of slack on stuff like this.

#1 was during a video dive on that 'anchor of ages' shenanigan. On the bottom I had to tuck myself under the anchor to shoot anything at all, on the surface Current was blowing so hard that even with a scooter on full and camera tucked away I had to hold on to the surface supplied divers tether and be pulled back to the boat. It was so strong I could barely hang on even wrapping my legs around the tether.

#2 Alki Junkyard diving for Pacific Marine Research (the kid dives) daily. The dives were scheduled for same time daily irrelevant of current, weather or tide and we'd swim out, grab the comms and camera and then drop. More times than I can count the current was so strong that we'd end up at the end of the 300' tether and using a trowel to make our way back to the anchor block. Sometimes that was of no avail and we'd just have to ascend and have the tender haul us back. I was always in the best shape of my life at the end of the season

#3 Channels off Alki point. Upwellings and down welling that can kick a Cuda's ass. Treat like rip current, get to the bottom, swim/scooter perpendicular, get out of there.

#4 Downwelling during point to point from Weatherwatch to mee-kwa-mooks. This was different than the Alki point channels as it was just a massive no way to get out of it Downwelling on one of the big rolling sand dune terrains . it started innocuously enough but picked up. I turned the dive and we headed in shallower before it got too much for the scooters.

In all cases, the trick is to stay with your belly on the bottom, crabbing sideways or at an angle against the current (you can do a pull and glide or stick your hand/trowel in and 'tack' across the current to get up slope. Wait till the last second to ascend as the generally water moves slowest where it is in contact with the substrate (friction). Get a compass heading before you start heading up so you can make some progress towards shore/boat/whatever but for most part you will be at the mercy of the water. Swim perpendicular to the current and aim for 'safe haven' as opposed to fighting to get back to entry point. You may end up a half mile down the beach but you can always walk or pull and glide your way back once you are in contact with shoreline. ON the surface WITH easy access to all the air you desire is way better than running out of gas on the bottom fighting current to get back to entry point. This advice goes out the window of course when it's down or upwelling, and that is dealt with on a case by case basis

Maldives channel dives ... you "hot drop" into a 3-5 knot current, going in negative so that you sink right away, and you're exiting the boat literally on the heels of the person in front of you. You get swept along a wall like you're watching a movie in fast forward ... and if you want to stop you use a reef hook ... a hand-size metal hook attached by a piece of heavy cave line to a D-ring on your BCD (preferably somewhat in the center). And keep a close eye on your buddy ... because if you both don't hook/unhook at the same time, you WILL be separated with no hope of getting back together again. If you want to take a picture, make sure your camera's well secured ... because as soon as you raise it up for a photo the current gods are going to try taking it away from you. If you turn your head the wrong way your regulator will freeflow.

It's a thrill ... and definitely a way of diving that requires better vis than we get in the PNW. But there's lots of large critters hanging out in those channels ... sharks and rays mostly ... which is why these dives are so popular.

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... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yup, deception pass.

fmerkel wrote:

Jeremy wrote:Warren Avenue Bridge receives my honorable mention for number two

Outside that, how is that dive?

I was skeptical of the dive initially but have to say it was one of the best dives in Puget Sound that I have done. Definitely up there with Deception Pass! I liked it better than DIW, Watermans Wall, Dalco...personally. Highly recommended!

GearHead wrote:^ Likewise. Day Island Wall just as we were coming over the top of the wall. Entered the water too late and got caught by the Ebb current. I just managed to make it to shore by hugging the bottom and kicking as hard as I could into the current. Fortunately I had left myself plenty of gas. The father & son team with me popped up out in the channel, and luckily got a tow back in by a nice boater.

Lessons learned: enter the water at DIW 45 minutes before slack and have enough reserve gas.

Ha ha ha ha, this story sounds awfully similar to the one that one of the locals there told us. She's always poking fun at us when she's around shouting from her car: Did you All make it back?

Grateful Diver wrote:Maldives channel dives ... you "hot drop" into a 3-5 knot current...

Done that. O. M. G. That was, by far, the fastest current I've ever seen. Zoooooooooom!

All very well organized. The dhoni boat was right there at the end, with the captain grinning from ear to ear. "Did you enjoy that dive?" Ha.

3-5 knots is a typical Agate Pass dive

Thanks for the responses! Good insights, definitely +1 on the tips given, especially the ride it out ones. As a newer diver I definitely got a bit too back-to-the-entry focused!

I've only been in a few concerning up/down dwellings. A bit scary when on a rebreather especially with the task loading. Most I can just tuck in behind something else or go to the side. Definitely best to try to swim along the wall a bit than continually fighting it in place.

I feel it helps to practice dealing with currents at a site like keystone where you can always grab onto the rocks with plenty of gas to get a feel for it. I also spent a drift dive at Port Hardy, trying to keep my position taking photos. Learned a lot there.

It is surprising how sometimes the currents are gusty!

60south wrote:Hudson Point, Port Townsend. Not at the jetty; out at the actual point, near the navigation marker..

Interesting. Anything out there? I haven't been past the barge.

YellowEye wrote:

60south wrote:Hudson Point, Port Townsend. Not at the jetty; out at the actual point, near the navigation marker..

Interesting. Anything out there? I haven't been past the barge.

Nothing there. We were looking for new diving territory, and hoping for bottles. It's all scoured out due to the currents.

We tried staying low and digging-in during the ascent (I keep a wide-bladed knife just for this sort of thing) but there was no hope.

Definitely Duncan Rock in Neah Bay. Dove it two days in a row, awesome and calm the first day, though it looks choppy on the surface. Day two it was calm on the surface and an absolute washing machine underwater. It was all we could do to stick together, get behind a ridge, and shoot a buoy to ascend.

The only think comparable was Blue Corner in Pulau, but you go there specifically for the blow and prepared with a reef hook.

My worst (non-drift) current experience was at Fox Island West Wall of all places. Absolutely no current in the beginning, and then whoosh! Think the Redondo River on steroids, pushing us aggressively away from shore. No rocks to help so we dug our hands in the bottom and tried pulling - no dice.

The effort to even just hold on was causing our air consumption to increase pretty dramatically. We figured being alive on the surface was better than the alternative, so we let go and started ascending. We paused to shoot an SMB to alert any boaters in the area, and continued ascending. By the time we got to the surface, there was absolutely no current at all. And we were fortunately not nearly as far from shore as we had assumed!

Things to learn from these scenarios:

Current "predictions" are really just guesstimates.

Sometimes random strong currents pop up, so discuss with your buddy beforehand what you will do - wait it out, fight it, head up?

Get an SMB and learn how to use it. Practice from time to time so you keep that skill sharp.

And always, in any situation, have a plan for if/when you get separated.

Penopolypants wrote:fight it

This happens periodically at keystone and often ends badly. A number of heart attacks there have been precipitated by the urge to fight the flow. I'm sure a number of our younger members would and could succeed, but may of us are older and potentially at higher risk than we think we are.