Waterman's Wall
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:09 am
Dive Site Name: Waterman's Wall
Current Sensitive: Yes very! Do-able on neap tides only. Requires slack before ebb to avoid downwellings. Secondary current station = Rich Passage, West End
Location/Address: Rich Passage between Bainbridge Island and Manchester/Port Orchard
Directions: Boat, 100' offshore from green channel marker #11 on the south side of Rich Passage.
Free Parking: Boat access only. We launched at Don Armeni at Alki. Roughly a nine mile trip to the site.
Staging Area: None
Surface Swim: None, be sure to descend the anchor line.
Nearby Facilities: Tidelands are all private
Special Considerations: Current, current and more current. Also depth and ferry/boat traffic. First time? Go with someone who's been here before. A live boat is recommended, although not absolutely required. Strongly consider using a spool or reel to mark the anchor line.
Additional information in the "Boat Dives of Puget Sound" book.
Maximum Depth: 40 to 150+
Dive Site Description:
Here are parts of a recent dive report to give you a feel for the site.
This wall is in Rich Passage, just east of Bremerton WA. I'd done it on 30/30 a couple of times down to ~100'. Run times for these dives were about 45 mins, so I was comfortable with this amount of time away from an anchored boat. So we tried this as a tech dive.
I dove when there was a 2.5 knot flood changing to a 1.44 knot ebb - relatively minor neap tide exchange. Thank goodness there's a current correction station almost on top of the site.
So I figured it was a good day to try a 150' dive for 20 mins, with 20 mins of deco on 50%. We used 21/35 for backgas. Double 100s.
We anchored in 40 ft of water and waited about 25 minutes.
We descended to the anchor and tied off the reel on the line just above the chain. Swimming northwest, we continued our descent over undulating boulders. At the 140' depth a 4' dogfish swam around us and one of the largest Pacific Octopuses was out sleeping. It was too large to fit in most of the crevices nearby - the mantle was about 2' in diameter. We tied off the reel @ 148' just below the sleeping octo and headed northeast into the current.
Plastered all over the rocks were tons of rock crabs, another sleeping octopus which hung out of its lair it was so big, and some of the largest lemon nuibranchs I've seen. At about 14 minutes runtime, right next to a bunch of rock scallops ringing a huge abalone, I turned the dive and we swam into the current (again) to return to the reel.
We ascended slowly, I actually wished I could have justified more and longer deep stops! Our deco was uneventful, we were able to relatively easily swim into the current at the 30 through 10 ft stops, keeping the anchor line in sight. We surfaced with a total runtime, of 54 mins. (We had some ear clearing delays on descent).
A fantastic dive, which never felt taxing despite its serious nature. An absolute blast on the right day at the right time!
Richard
Current Sensitive: Yes very! Do-able on neap tides only. Requires slack before ebb to avoid downwellings. Secondary current station = Rich Passage, West End
Location/Address: Rich Passage between Bainbridge Island and Manchester/Port Orchard
Directions: Boat, 100' offshore from green channel marker #11 on the south side of Rich Passage.
Free Parking: Boat access only. We launched at Don Armeni at Alki. Roughly a nine mile trip to the site.
Staging Area: None
Surface Swim: None, be sure to descend the anchor line.
Nearby Facilities: Tidelands are all private
Special Considerations: Current, current and more current. Also depth and ferry/boat traffic. First time? Go with someone who's been here before. A live boat is recommended, although not absolutely required. Strongly consider using a spool or reel to mark the anchor line.
Additional information in the "Boat Dives of Puget Sound" book.
Maximum Depth: 40 to 150+
Dive Site Description:
Here are parts of a recent dive report to give you a feel for the site.
This wall is in Rich Passage, just east of Bremerton WA. I'd done it on 30/30 a couple of times down to ~100'. Run times for these dives were about 45 mins, so I was comfortable with this amount of time away from an anchored boat. So we tried this as a tech dive.
I dove when there was a 2.5 knot flood changing to a 1.44 knot ebb - relatively minor neap tide exchange. Thank goodness there's a current correction station almost on top of the site.
So I figured it was a good day to try a 150' dive for 20 mins, with 20 mins of deco on 50%. We used 21/35 for backgas. Double 100s.
We anchored in 40 ft of water and waited about 25 minutes.
We descended to the anchor and tied off the reel on the line just above the chain. Swimming northwest, we continued our descent over undulating boulders. At the 140' depth a 4' dogfish swam around us and one of the largest Pacific Octopuses was out sleeping. It was too large to fit in most of the crevices nearby - the mantle was about 2' in diameter. We tied off the reel @ 148' just below the sleeping octo and headed northeast into the current.
Plastered all over the rocks were tons of rock crabs, another sleeping octopus which hung out of its lair it was so big, and some of the largest lemon nuibranchs I've seen. At about 14 minutes runtime, right next to a bunch of rock scallops ringing a huge abalone, I turned the dive and we swam into the current (again) to return to the reel.
We ascended slowly, I actually wished I could have justified more and longer deep stops! Our deco was uneventful, we were able to relatively easily swim into the current at the 30 through 10 ft stops, keeping the anchor line in sight. We surfaced with a total runtime, of 54 mins. (We had some ear clearing delays on descent).
A fantastic dive, which never felt taxing despite its serious nature. An absolute blast on the right day at the right time!
Richard
