Draining the tanks at the Dry Dock...

You ever have one of those days where you just need to get wet, but can't decide on where to splash...? If you're diving with any regularity at all I'm sure you've faced this dilemma a time or two. Well, today was one of those days. All the usual suspects were thrown out there, but today we were looking for something a little different.

Dane suggested we drive by the water front and just hop in somewhere that looked interesting. Tempting, but after I thought on it for a minute it came to me. "You dove the dry dock out by C.I. Shenanigans yet...?"

Although I'd dove the site once before there was still plenty I'd yet to see out there. Dane hadn't dove it, so... that was that... we agreed to the dry dock. Needing a little air, I made my way to A2Z and threw my tank on the compressor. I met up with Dane there and, as is obligatory when spotting a diver meandering aimlessly about a dive shop, in full view, you accost him (Mike D. in this case) and twist the heck out of his arm until he joins you. He was tough to persuade, I'll admit. We had to wait out nearly a full second before he was grabbing his tank for a fill too. Alright, maybe a slight exaggeration. ;)

Parking was pretty slim, but we managed to settle in and then gathered near shore for a dive brief. The Vis wasn't looking so hot at the surface, but we decided to take the not-so-giant stride off the dock anyway.

The sight of Plumose Anemones in row after row indicated we were on target. Seeing them from 10-15' away was a nice surprise... the Vis wasn't so bad after all. From the onset I lost sight of Mike, but soon had bubbles coming up at me from below indicating to me that he was taking in the view from there. I snapped a few photos from the topside and then Dane and I made our way down to join Mike at the end of the dock. We spent a short time there before working our way to depth on a NNE heading, and then making a turn to the ESE for the greater portion of our dive.

Along the way we crossed paths with: two abandoned crab pots; a playful sailfin sculpin who'd taken up residence on another small catch pot of some sort; a dungeness or two; bottles bottles bottles; timber of varying size and states of decomposition; and what appeared to be a freshly dumped safe, or secured file cabinet, wrapped in a unmistakeably new (and blue) moving blanket.

Now this "safe" was an interesting find. I passed over it with a very curious eye, but I was a bit more cautious than it turned out my dive buddies were. I was out front of the group and had gotten a bit beyond that point when I realized that I could no longer see the periodic flash of dive lights coming from behind me... which meant only one thing... they had stopped at that blanket. Sure enough, both Dane and Mike were on their knees unwrapping the blanket. I took up a position above and watched the unraveling. This was clearly a fresh dumping, not a lick of rust on the metallic exterior and the blanket looked like it was brand new. Unfortunately, a quick check of my SPG told me that I was down to 450psi and that I wouldn't have much time to hang out. Dane attempted to roll the object over which kicked up a cloud of silt that was going to make the job of trying to get in the thing that much more difficult... so I flagged him down and indicated I was heading to our exit point. I know... what kind of treasure hunter am I...? We could have been RICH...!!

And then there's the exit. Somehow, in all the pre-dive excitement (which didn't really exist), I forgot to mention the plan for exiting at this site. I did laugh a little about this underwater as I made my way to the unannounced exit point, but the joke was on me. After filling them in, both Mike and Dane were up the rock bulkhead and on the sidewalk before I was even out of my fins, so I figure there wasn't much harm done in omitting that little bit.




Dive Buddy Group: Dane C., and Mike D. (70fsw for 1hr03min.)