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SPRING 2016
LOCAL DIVING
WASHINGTON
Lingcod are everywhere. Some valiantly guard clutches of eggs that
look like balls of Styrofoam. At 40 feet deep, I see nestled in a forest of
ghostly white plumose anemones a 4-foot-long monster big enough
to make one’s blood run cold. Rare on many Northwest reefs thanks
to overfishing, lingcod numbers (and epic sizes) here are proof that
protection works. All marine life in this underwater park is protected, so
the rockfish, starfish and cabezon — along with the big brutish lingcod
with his bullying stare — should be here in the future, fat and happy.
With fingers intact we continue deeper, acting on a friend’s tip that
a wolf-eel was recently seen hanging out at 55 feet. I’ve seen both
juveniles and adults at Keystone and never tire of their Muppet faces.
But a pile of crab carapaces and scallop shells catches my eye, and I
forget all about
Anarrhichthys ocellatus
. The messy midden of a well-fed
giant Pacific octopus (GPO in local diver-speak) is a lure I cannot resist.
Flattening myself on the sand like a halibut, I shine my light into the
shadow under the large rock beside the garbage heap. Sure enough, I spy
a tangle of tentacles with suckers the size of silver dollars. It appears to
be a good-sized specimen at 7 or 8 feet across, perhaps.
For the next 10 minutes we wait, wiggle our fingers, mutter curses
and say prayers; we even offer up tasty-looking bits of already devoured
shellfish, all in hopes of coaxing the wily devilfish from its den. But
there’s no luck today. This octo is more patient than we are, and
probably smarter, too. The current, barely noticeable for the first half of
our dive, is now steadily building, bending the plumose anemones and
trying to tug us toward the jetty end and out into Admiralty Inlet. It’s
time to go. We retrace our fin kicks and return to shore.
Current is the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest marine ecosystem,
critical for moving the nutrient-rich waters that nourish life large
and small. And things can really get moving at the deeper end of the
breakwater during large tidal exchanges. To safely and enjoyably dive
Keystone, schedule your dives for slack water, the period of minimal
water movement that occurs between changes in current direction. On
days with small exchanges, slack may last 90 minutes or more. On days
with large exchanges, you may have only a few minutes of true slack, but
there is usually enough time for a dive.
Keystone’s second dive site should also be timed for slack tide. The
subsea scenery here provides a nice contrast to the jetty’s jumbled
rocks. While weaving between the wharf ’s wooden pilings between
10 and 35 feet, we move slowly to allow close examination of the
encrusting invertebrates. Bouquets of giant feather-duster worms
extend deep purple feeding plumes into the water to snag passing
plankton. Brightly striped painted anemones bloom in green, red,
yellow and mauve — it’s easy to see why they’re nicknamed dahlia
anemones. Sponges and the ubiquitous
Metridium
anemones carpet
the vertical supports, while leather stars and blood stars use tube feet
to march across the cobbled bottom.
Up pilings, around, down and back up again, we search the matrix
with masks pressed close to the many layers of life. A male buffalo
sculpin is parked on lime-green eggs, while jellyfish drift by. Snails lay
whirls of eggs as the usual crustacean contingent of shrimps and crabs
go about their scuttling business. These pilings are high-rise condos
forming a city in the sea.
From top:
An old male wolf-eel chomps
a crab; a drysuited diver explores the
maze of pilings underneath the wharf; an
18-inch-long juvenile wolf-eel sports much
brighter colors than its parents.