Rosy Rosario
The Marker Buoy dive club held a shore dive at Rosario Beach, in Deception Pass State Park on Saturday.
I was able to get a ride with friends, and we arrived right at the meet time of 9 am, unlike our trip organizer, Carl, who arrived about 45 mins late, wondering why he had scheduled it so early. No problem, as we weren't hitting slack anyway. Others had had their dog chew their dive under-garments, or had a run-in with the State Police as regards the speed limit. So we moved pretty slowly, but got ready and hiked the fair distance on a good path to enter the water close to Urchin Rocks. I had a few problems getting in (like forgetting to turn on my air), but one of my buddies, Matt, got me straightened out and we swam out to begin the dive.
When we went down the visibility was terrible, like diving in 2% milk, apparently a fairly common occurrence at this site, due to the river run-off from the Skagit. We lost track of each other pretty quickly. As depths were quite shallow (around 30-35'), and I had previously told Matt and Mary Alice not to worry about me as I was taking pictures, there wasn't any problem. Most dive teams had the same problems and got lost and separated as well, swimming out too far on the shallow flats and loosing track of the rocks. Some made it to Rosario Head and reported a nice wall and better depths, but only two made it around the head to Sharpe Cove on the other side, due to adverse currents.
I fiddled around the rocks trying to find critters to shoot - not having too much luck as even with macro the vis was so bad I couldn't really see the focus and exposure of my shots.
I kept the rocks to my left and ended up going through the middle slot and after finding the rocks then to my right, I gave up and surfaced to get some bearings. Funny, I could see a sea of divers' heads poking up in the distance like otters looking around for a meal!
I dove back down as I had lots of gas left, and swam around the north end of the rocks and ended up back with Mary Alice to swim back in. At least we started and ended the dive together!
Most divers agreed that the rocks and particularly Rosario Head would be a good dive in better conditions, and would like to try it again. The best comment I heard was; "My buddy kept pointing things out, but I couldn't see his hand!"
The best part of the day for all was having a picnic and hiking around park to enjoy the views and sunshine.
Photos are at: Rosario Beach shore dive
I was able to get a ride with friends, and we arrived right at the meet time of 9 am, unlike our trip organizer, Carl, who arrived about 45 mins late, wondering why he had scheduled it so early. No problem, as we weren't hitting slack anyway. Others had had their dog chew their dive under-garments, or had a run-in with the State Police as regards the speed limit. So we moved pretty slowly, but got ready and hiked the fair distance on a good path to enter the water close to Urchin Rocks. I had a few problems getting in (like forgetting to turn on my air), but one of my buddies, Matt, got me straightened out and we swam out to begin the dive.
When we went down the visibility was terrible, like diving in 2% milk, apparently a fairly common occurrence at this site, due to the river run-off from the Skagit. We lost track of each other pretty quickly. As depths were quite shallow (around 30-35'), and I had previously told Matt and Mary Alice not to worry about me as I was taking pictures, there wasn't any problem. Most dive teams had the same problems and got lost and separated as well, swimming out too far on the shallow flats and loosing track of the rocks. Some made it to Rosario Head and reported a nice wall and better depths, but only two made it around the head to Sharpe Cove on the other side, due to adverse currents.
I fiddled around the rocks trying to find critters to shoot - not having too much luck as even with macro the vis was so bad I couldn't really see the focus and exposure of my shots.
I dove back down as I had lots of gas left, and swam around the north end of the rocks and ended up back with Mary Alice to swim back in. At least we started and ended the dive together!
Most divers agreed that the rocks and particularly Rosario Head would be a good dive in better conditions, and would like to try it again. The best comment I heard was; "My buddy kept pointing things out, but I couldn't see his hand!"
The best part of the day for all was having a picnic and hiking around park to enjoy the views and sunshine.
Photos are at: Rosario Beach shore dive
