Rob Holman
08-08-2006, 03:16 PM
Got back from Neah Bay a couple weeks back. The weather cooperated and it was a great trip. We did a little spearing, shot about 15 black/blue rock fish per day, a couple of medium sized ling, as well as some nice rock scallops. We focused mainly on taking advantage of the great weather and diving some sites that are usually too pounded by surf to do with comfort.
One of the stranger sites I have ever seen diving was on the south side of Tatoosh island. In water between 20 and 80 feet, the ground was covered with tens of thousands of huge Dungeness crab! There was at least three layers of crab molts, and on top of that there were at least two layers of live crab. It was amazing and kind of creepy. They must have come in for some kind of molting event. At first I thought a commercial crabbing vessel had dropped it's catch. But as we kept swimming and never ran out of crab, we decided it had to be some kind of natural (or supernatural) event. At any rate, with all those crab in the water, I only found one that was legal to harvest. The rest were all soft or undersized.
On surface intervals, we explored some of the sea caves that are normally very hard to go see due to the surf. One had some stuff that looked like sea lion afterbirth in it. Another had an elephant seal in it! I have never seen one of those in the wild before. We also saw a sea otter.
The swells out there are normally an average of about 6 feet, and we had only like 6 inches of swell.
a full write-up by my buddy can be found at: http://www.seanet.com/~katrinakruse/Neah%20bay%202006.htm
For those familiar with Neah, here is a shot of Duncan Rock that most will say is pretty typical. We dove it this day and were happy to have the weather so nice.
One of the stranger sites I have ever seen diving was on the south side of Tatoosh island. In water between 20 and 80 feet, the ground was covered with tens of thousands of huge Dungeness crab! There was at least three layers of crab molts, and on top of that there were at least two layers of live crab. It was amazing and kind of creepy. They must have come in for some kind of molting event. At first I thought a commercial crabbing vessel had dropped it's catch. But as we kept swimming and never ran out of crab, we decided it had to be some kind of natural (or supernatural) event. At any rate, with all those crab in the water, I only found one that was legal to harvest. The rest were all soft or undersized.
On surface intervals, we explored some of the sea caves that are normally very hard to go see due to the surf. One had some stuff that looked like sea lion afterbirth in it. Another had an elephant seal in it! I have never seen one of those in the wild before. We also saw a sea otter.
The swells out there are normally an average of about 6 feet, and we had only like 6 inches of swell.
a full write-up by my buddy can be found at: http://www.seanet.com/~katrinakruse/Neah%20bay%202006.htm
For those familiar with Neah, here is a shot of Duncan Rock that most will say is pretty typical. We dove it this day and were happy to have the weather so nice.