Recently I made my way up to the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, to visit some close friends. My close friends weren’t keen to the idea of scuba diving in the cold water, and instead, let me go on a solo field trip in the outer Seattle area to do some diving.
Using the meetup app, I joined the Pacific Northwest Scuba Diving Group. The moderators and members gave me great advice and helpful tips around the area. In fact, I became friends with Phil Berg, who offered to meet up with me on my one day Scuba Trip. Coincidentally worked at Hoodsport N’ Dive. This shop leases the land up the street to make Sund Rock an easy shore dive. Currently the shop sells day passes to the site for $20 a pop. Not bad for the location. I’d really rather pay $20 than have to walk with all my scuba gear a long ways.
Doing some research on the Scuba scene in Seattle, I found that there were two locations I really wanted to check out:
Top Seattle Scuba Diving Spots
San Juan Islands
Its about a 1.5 hour drive from Seattle and then a 1.5 hour ferry ride. From there you can do half day or full day kayak tours. Originally I had wanted to go here to do a full day kayal tour $99 to spot some Orcas. There are many websites that track the tagged orcas or try to show the migration path of the orcas around the British Columbia and pacific northwest area. Chances were slim on seeing Orcas. (instead we hiked around Mt. Rainer National Park). Back to Diving. Logistically, this entailed more planning, which I just didn’t have time to do.
Sund Rock
Nestled away about an 1.5-2 hours away in a city called Hoodsport. Divers often refer to this area as Hood Canal. The big attractions are octopus, Wolf Eels, Plume Anemones and rock fish.
(and obviously… I chose Sund Rock)
There are a couple options to dive at Sund Rock. We planned two dives – one to the wreck and another to the wall.
Visibility was murky at best from 0-20 feet depth. Once we got deeper at the wall, visibility cleared up and we could really see all the beautiful plume anemones. We searched a great deal for octopus, but I think they were feeling shy that day.
Here’s a quick video from my gopro combining the two dives.
I really enjoyed diving in the Pacific Northwest. I would love to go back and spend a week exploring different dive sites. Going through the darkness reminded me of going through some haunted houses and feeling my heartbeat faster. Spooky, dark waters filled with great surprises.
Until next dive…
