Titlow 11/13

[stphnmartin]

Hit Titlow with SJ, Laura and H20 Doc on Saturday under challenging conditions. I haven't been to the site in perhaps 5 years or more. Kicking out we experienced turbulence and I dropped down after quickly grabbing a compass bearing. I kicked and grabbed my way and found a couple ropes to pull me along before reaching the shelter of the pilings. I stopped to catch my breath and wait for the others.

I started touring the site and found some giant tube worms. Making my way to the south end of the pilings I came under the brunt of the current and with some effort I shot out in front and over to between the two sets of pilings and went flying in the current. I ran almost headfirst into a seal coming the other direction. We both flew with the current and tucked in behind the lee of the pilings and played a little hide and seek. It never allowed me to get a good shot of it.

I really like the idea of making this a drift dive!

Here are a few grabs from the video:

Outline of the seal bottom center

Crab and shrimp sharing a mussel

[YellowEye]

Very cool!

[bradmond]

Surprised you got some video in that current, looks good.

[Scubie Doo]

Very nice Stephen. Your screen grabs are pretty nice.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[H20doctor]

current was Brutal ... LOL you win the Diver award for saturdays dive !!!!! i spent 18 mins in 8 feet of water , and slack never happened , talked with Gdog about titlow and what went wrong with the timing of currents, and tide predictions for that site .. ??? still scratching my head on that one , anyway it gives Us another reason to go back and do it again .. Here are my pics from the dive

[Scubak]

I did Titlow with the reasonable predictions and it was one heck of a current dive. I actually had to go from piling to piling to get back to shore. That was a few years ago...
Dan Hershman and Ron Topp have a great timing for that site.
Kirsten

[fmerkel]

What was splash time?

[ScubaJess]

Man that was an adventure. Great shots Stephen! I didn't even look at the 10 pics I managed to take yet.
We have to go back when the tides are better. I had a blast.
How was Redondo after?

[Gdog]

Guys, use the same calculations as you do for day island. And go on small exchange days.

[fmerkel]

Guys, use the same calculations as you do for day island. And go on small exchange days.

Titlow has a reverse current. According to NWSD-Fischnaller it slack before flood minus 5", slack before ebb plus 33". I have no idea what the velocity ratio would be but the afternoon exchange, assuming it was the afternoon dive was; 3.4 flood > 3:20 slack > 3.9 ebb, N. Narrows. That's middling hefty. I've been out in Day Island in similar, and was the wiser for it.

[H20doctor]

Guys, use the same calculations as you do for day island. And go on small exchange days.

Titlow has a reverse current. According to NWSD-Fischnaller it slack before flood minus 5", slack before ebb plus 33". I have no idea what the velocity ratio would be but the afternoon exchange, assuming it was the afternoon dive was; 3.4 flood > 3:20 slack > 3.9 ebb, N. Narrows. That's middling hefty. I've been out in Day Island in similar, and was the wiser for it.

Yep we got spanked good ... i had slack at 250 pm .. we got in at 235 ish ... I havent been to titlow In over 8 years , the last time i was there was with Cardiver and Bassman
when we arrived i could see the tops of the shallow pilings , so i knew the tide wasnt completely in .... after we were done the tide was going out , So I knew we were there at the right time , But the issue was it never slacked , AND the current was always Running North during our dive ...

So i take it that this tide was too Big , and titlow should be done on a 5 to 8 foot exchange ?? LOL

[H20doctor]

Guys, use the same calculations as you do for day island. And go on small exchange days.

i dont dive Day Island Wall .... Im a North ender ... I do skyline and deception Pass , Possession Point fingers BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

[Gdog]

Don't look at the tides when diving DIW or titlow. Look at the current. They don't slack at the same time. If you time it right, you can ride the current change across from the ledges to the pilings. But as Fritz pointed out, the current at titlow is reverse.

[fmerkel]

Tide station > no!. High tide 2:50PM
Current station >yes! N. Narrows Current station; 3.4 flood > 3:20 slack > 3.9 ebb

Slack before ebb correction factor plus 33"; 3:20 + 33 = 3:53 PM slack. Minus 30" to bridge slack > splash time about 3:20.
You were off an hour on a middling large exchange in the Narrows. The results were predictable. You would have been fine most likely at 3:30 splash.

[mpenders]

I had a similar experience diving at Titlow a few years back. We did get to the dolphin (barely), where we pretty much hid from the current behind the pilings the entire dive.

Small exchange days are key when diving sites along the Tacoma Narrows, such as Day Island, Titlow and Fox Island East Wall. I tend to refer to the Dairiiki Currents at the Narrows, North End current chart when planning these dives:

Dairiki 11.12.16 Tacoma Narrows.png (6.65 KiB) Viewed 3328 times

For Day Island, I try to stay under 2kts of current on both sides of the slack. Any larger than that, and things can get...interesting. At least, for those of us carrying cameras instead of scoots.

Saturday was projected to be a bit bigger than what I would generally try.

(looks like Gdog and fmerkel can both type faster than I can)

[Jeff Pack]

Yea, those higher currents, sometimes you get no slack at all. Last time Jeff and I dove there, we got spanked pretty good, but had scooters, but literally there was no slack, it just switched and started blowing us back north (We were on the south wall at that point around 180ft).

Decoing out in current is no fun, was slowly pushing us towards titlow...

[H20doctor]

Okay excellent thank you very very much for the instructional how to... for timing currents...i will use the narrows current table now on Dariki...
See i learned a valuable new Dive skill !!!

[fmerkel]

Seems since everything has gone digital people have forgotten NW Shored Dive by S. Fischnaller. It's not longer in print but you can get used copies. He's got a good section on how to figure out currents and lists current corrections for lots of dives.

Personal warning - Plan your Dive site seems to be 'crowd sourcing' for this. It's not a very accurate resource. In fact it's horribly wrong for some sites.
Example: PYD: slack before ebb minus 16, slack before flood minus 5
NWSD: slack before ebb plus 33, slack before flood -10 (I'd believe NWSD)
On slack before ebb they are 45" apart. That's unacceptable for a site like Titlow, especially on a larger exchange.

People use it instead of their brain, I guess. Well, you 'get what you pay for".

[Jeff Pack]

I always delete those presets in PYD, especially if diving DIW.

[H20doctor]

i usually bounce from 3 tide sites ... NOAA .. dariki , and tides and currents ... from all 3 i make a decision from when to splash , But the only places i make these factors on are , the Heavy Big sites , skyline, Deception Pass ...
Im just dont Do day Island wall because of the Long drive , My Happy , limited Parking , and the WOW factor ... for some divers Here in the PNW day Island is the shizzle nizzle dizzle .. But for me , I want to see LIfe and stuff , and color ... day island is a good site , just not my first choice on a great low tide exchange ...
I will try to find a copy of the Book fritz , it seems to be a great reference for us PNW divers

[bradmond]

I will try to find a copy of the Book fritz , it seems to be a great reference for us PNW divers

here ya go..some used copies on Amazon

[Gdog]

Fritz, you are right, that is a great book. Unfortunately I loaned my copy to someone, I dont remember who it was. And I havent seen it since. So...if you are out there, and your book is autographed to me from my wife, please can I have it back?!