Flying on Boeing 125' Down
Four of us went out on Steve Lodge's boat out of Edmonds this evening for a dive out on Puget Sound. The other two guys who joined us are sort of new to the dive club, Eric and Carl. I got up there at 5:45 and we departed shortly thereafter for Boeing Creek Reef just south of Pt Wells. Steve dives here pretty often, it was my second time, although lord knows I've spun my sailboat over it as a race mark about a million times. It was a beautiful evening with the sun out and very calm. Almost no current to speak of.
We let the other guys get in and then the three of us, Steve, Scooter and myself, jumped in and descended in rather good viz conditions. Steve and my dive plan was to scooter over to the south reef area that's deeper. We played around with the scooter for a few minutes then mounted up and I drug Steve along behind over towards the other reef. Problem was that I forgot my compass, as I was using a backup computer, my Oceanic is fried. So we sort of went in a loop out into deeper water a ways. Ok quite a ways. Lot of nice sand, and actually some nice Snakelock anemones and a couple of other deep varieties I hadn't seen before, as normally I don't go about a mile along 125' deep contour.
We stopped and figured out what direction the slope was. Ok, Steve figured out where the slope was. I'm just the driver. Then we motored back up shallower to 75' and found the deeper wall of the reef for a while, and continued back up and enjoyed the fish life at the top. Most of the fish were juvenile rock fish, and we did see 3-4 larger vermillion rockfish, and the other guys they saw some too.
We continued back along the shallow slope north towards the boat, and after doing a mid water safety stop, we surfaced and found the boat a short distance away, very short in scooter distance. So all in all, an adventurous dive that covered a lot of distance. Would of been better if I'd had some idea of where I was going, but why start now.
We pulled the hook and motored back to Edmonds, enjoying the light show put on by distant lightening over the San Juans, and were packed up and in our cars by 9 pm.
it was really nice to get out on the water mid-week and enjoy an evening boat dive.
We let the other guys get in and then the three of us, Steve, Scooter and myself, jumped in and descended in rather good viz conditions. Steve and my dive plan was to scooter over to the south reef area that's deeper. We played around with the scooter for a few minutes then mounted up and I drug Steve along behind over towards the other reef. Problem was that I forgot my compass, as I was using a backup computer, my Oceanic is fried. So we sort of went in a loop out into deeper water a ways. Ok quite a ways. Lot of nice sand, and actually some nice Snakelock anemones and a couple of other deep varieties I hadn't seen before, as normally I don't go about a mile along 125' deep contour.
We stopped and figured out what direction the slope was. Ok, Steve figured out where the slope was. I'm just the driver. Then we motored back up shallower to 75' and found the deeper wall of the reef for a while, and continued back up and enjoyed the fish life at the top. Most of the fish were juvenile rock fish, and we did see 3-4 larger vermillion rockfish, and the other guys they saw some too.We continued back along the shallow slope north towards the boat, and after doing a mid water safety stop, we surfaced and found the boat a short distance away, very short in scooter distance. So all in all, an adventurous dive that covered a lot of distance. Would of been better if I'd had some idea of where I was going, but why start now.
We pulled the hook and motored back to Edmonds, enjoying the light show put on by distant lightening over the San Juans, and were packed up and in our cars by 9 pm.
it was really nice to get out on the water mid-week and enjoy an evening boat dive.
