Title: Dive Reports
Author: Jerry Ehrlich
Category: Hood Canal
File Size: 28 kb
File Type: PDF
Date Catalogued: Thursday, April 7, 2005

To submit a dive report for Hood Canal, email teresa@hcseg.org.

9/23/2006 Sund Rock

Received 10/16/2006

The second hand reports I received after the dives was that everyone was seeing good variety and activity down to 110 feet.  I had one team go to over 110 at Rosie’s Ravine, just south of the Duckabush river, on Sunday.  They reported good variety, life and activity.  One of the divers yesterday (Sunday 10/15) indicated she thought the critters at about 30 feet were stressed at Gobie Gardens and Pinnacle.  Other divers reported good life and activity from 40 feet down to 80 feet on the same sites.  I’m sorry I couldn’t dive myself to make observations.  One of the things that makes me wonder about the accuracy of the observations is the reports of healthy burrowing sea cucumbers at the same levels that other divers reported stressed burrowing sea cucumbers nearby.  I had reports of painted greenling at Pinnacle that appeared to be gasping for air, when there were other species at the same depth that seemed OK.  At Pinnacle the vermillion rockfish are still at the expected depth of 70 feet.  Since the recent event that seems to still be going on at Sund Rock I’m wondering if some divers are expecting the worst therefore finding it. 

I know the southerly wind and rain this weekend should have an effect, but I don’t know if it will be positive or negative.  With all the warm weather the past couple weeks and the northerly breeze we experienced an algae bloom that as of yesterday extended to about 40 feet in depth.  Below that horizontal visibility was 15 - 30+ depending on the site and current.  I expect the cold nights and cooler days with some rain will start to clear up the bloom.  As of last weekend (10/7 & 10/8) I personally could not see any obvious signs of distress or change at Pulali Point and Pinnacle where I was able to dive.  I’m sure there are subtle signs that I notice because I dive the sites so often, but it’s really hard for me to tell if it’s normal seasonal changes or if it’s related to low DO2.

don

 

10/14/06 Sund Rock - Large dive group

Marine life in very shallow water and clearly struggling

Consistent, somber message from many divers-unexpected, abnormal sightings  

15-20 wolf eels, most out in the open (15-20 feet)

Sea cucumbers in bad shape- stressed w/ feeding tentacles out, dead, or decomposing- no healthy sea cucumbers.

200 copper rockfish above 15 feet

Large schools of copper, vermilion, and brown rockfish in 15 feet

Spot prawns in the shallows 20-30 ft and none below that depth

Fast moving coonstripe shrimp and lethargic spot prawns together 18-20 ft

Sea stars unhealthy

Stressed plumose anemones- tentacles in, bodies slumped over

Very few lingcod, 2 lingcod together at 15-20 ft, 1 lingcod at 20 ft, many divers saw none

Nudibranchs above 45 ft

Lethargic Dungeness crab

Painted greenlings 17 ft

Blackeye gobies at normal depths (distributed at all depths of dive) but fewer than before fish kill

Dark, brown layer at about 15 ft (acts like a ceiling)

Ciona all over North Wall

A diver, separate from group, had gone deeper than most and reported very little life at 100 ft, but did see a few rockfish, crab, sea pens.

 

10/14/2006 Sund Rock

Life appeared worse than on 9/23/2006- much of what was struggling in September now dead and dying

Large amount of decomposition

Invasive tunicate Ciona savigny population dramatically increased

Ciona all over (some at 40 ft, mostly 50-70 ft)

Blackeyed gobies above 50 ft, most 20-30 ft and much fewer than in Sept

No wolf eels (North Wall)

1 painted greenling (9 ft)

20-30 copper rockfish and 3-4 vermilion rockfish (20 ft or less)

15-20 pile perch (20 ft)

2 large schools of shiner perch (9 ft)

11 striped perch (9 ft)

100+ coonstripe shrimp (15 ft)

1 lethargic dungeness crab (50 ft)

4-5 red rock crab (11 ft)

3 spot prawns with unusual brown coating (30 ft)

Plumose anemones down to 70 ft, but much fewer:

Above 20 ft: many!!

20-50 ft: 40-50

50-70 ft: 30-40

50-100 sea cucumbers dead or dying

Stressed sea cucumbers (20 ft and less)

1 orange ribbon worm out, usually never seen

Sunflower stars clearly stressed (30 ft and less)

No rockfish deep

No staghorns

 

10/14/06 Sund Rock

Almost all life above 20-30 ft.

Wolf eels out in the open.

40-90 ft = no life observed

Below 90 ft: some Dungeness crab, flatfish

Shop is encouraging divers to stay away from wolf eels and lingcod.

Thick, red, fibrous layer at about 15 ft that is 1 foot thick

 

10/7/2006 Octopus Hole

Fish lethargic and shallow

Large school of rockfish at ~30 ft with several different species together- yellow eye, copper, all moving slow.

Very lethargic wolf eel 6 to 8 feet long in only 17 feet of water

 

Received 10/2/2006

Here’s a short note from The Hood.  Everyone’s been asking how we’re weathering the low DO2 event that occurred in the southern Hood.  From my personal observation I think I see some small change in the behavior of the rockfish.  At the West Wall of Pulali Point over the weekend I found large schools of rockfish in the 50 - 70 fsw range.  That’s not unusual but it was a little different to see the variety in the same school.  All the critters I saw seemed to be active and I didn’t notice any stress.  One diver found a wolf eel that was out that seemed to be stressed; I’m not sure what the depth was on that.  It was sad to find an Octo den that I’ve been watching had been abandoned and the eggs are not hatched.  The eggs still look healthy but for two days the female was not found in the den so I can only assume something has happed to her.  So, we’re still seeing good life and activity but there are very subtle indications that the low O2 is affecting the critters we see.  With the hot weather after the rain a couple weeks ago we’re seeing a little bit of a bloom between 15 and 30 feet.  Below that vis is 15 - 20 or better.  There’s still a few Lion’s Main jellies out there, and they’re looking for divers to play with. 

don

 

9/28/2006 Sund Rock

Signs of stress continue with most fish above 30 ft, within the layer of low visibility. This includes rockfish and wolf-eels, which have been stressed and “panting”.  There are many tunicates and nudibranchs in deeper water.  At 150 ft, healthy-looking sea pens, Dungeness crab, and flatfish.

 

Received 9/26/2006

I dove Sunday on Pulali Pt west wall and Pinnacle.  I submitted surveys on line for both sites.  The data is what I could remember, I could not take a sheet on the dive with me. 

General observations were good.  I saw good life and activity down to 80 fsw.  There was a little bit of a bloom on the surface and the vis was not quite as good as a couple weeks ago.  There was quite a bit of stuff floating on the surface like eel grass and possibly vegetation/debris  that washed off the beaches to the south with the southerly winds last weekend.

I heard the critters at Sund Rock are still severely stressed.  I’ll try to dive a little to the south this weekend if the sites are appropriate for my divers experience level.  I’m curious how the critters are doing down by the Hamma Hamma river. 

 

9/23/2006 Sund Rock

Many dead lingcod on beach along with a few rock sole, and a kelp greenling

Dead Lion’s Mane jellyfish

Blackeye goby seemed least affected- seen at all depths

Ciona spreading

Stressed and dying California sea cucumbers, many above 20 ft

Nearly all fish in shallow water (0-20 ft)

75 copper rockfish, sluggish

150+ perch

1 painted greenling

Wolf eels, lethargic and struggling (15, 20 ft)

Few fish in deeper water

5 pile perch (20-50 ft)

1 wolf eel (>50 ft)

1 copper rockfish (>50 ft)

1 brown rockfish (>50 ft)

Fewer sunflower stars and some clearly dying (60 ft)

Several dead sailfin sculpin

 

 

 

Received 9/19/2006

I wanted to let you know what we found in the Central Hood this weekend. I didn’t dive myself but got reports from the divers. I know there’s some indications of low DO2 at Sund Rock and I’ve just read an article from the Sun, I hope the article doesn’t create a panic for the whole Hood Canal. I know it’s an issue all over, but these articles have a huge negative effect up here when we don’t see such dramatic effects from the low DO problem. I expect I’ll be hearing for the next few weeks that “the Hood is dieing, why should we go there?”.

We dove Gobie Gardens, just south of the Duckabush river, Black Point just outside the Marina and The Pinnacle, up by Seal Rock. We did a total of 6 trips and took out 16 divers. At all sites the divers reported lots of fish, good activity and really nothing unusual. The average dive was about 80 feet. The vermillion rockfish I was worried about a few weeks ago are down at 60-70 feet where I expect them to be. The only unusual critter sighting was a dogfish laying on the bottom at about 70 feet at Gobie Gardens. I usually expect them to be shy, but since all the other fish showed good activity I’m wondering if that one was injured from being hooked by a fisherman? Visibility at all the sites was good, the bloom at the surface seems to be thinning out, below 20 feet I had reports of 20-30+ of horizontal vis.

I do expect to see some changes from the southerly winds, but we haven’t seen anything dramatic yet. I’ll keep you posted if we do. We’ll be diving again this weekend.

don

Received 9/17/2006

There's not too much to add to what Janna has already reported for me. The big thing is that everything seemed to be struggling to breath. The octopus was very eerie. It was a very good size-mantle bigger than a basketball. It was sitting there out in the open at the top of the wall and even though I almost came down on top of it, it never moved. And it was stretched out in a very odd way. It seemed like all it could do was watch me and try to breath and move the ends of its tenacles just a bit. The Coonstripe Shrimp and Spot Prawns were all out in the open and although the shrimp moved away when we approached the Spot Prawns were very lethargic. Likewise, the Sailfin Sculpins and a White-Spotted Greenling did not move at all when I approached them. And the Sailfins had their full sail up and were out in the open. There was a small school of Copper Rockfish at their somewhat usual place in the "Fish Bowl" but there was another smaller school (maybe 10) of really large Coppers at 10 feet. They swam up to me and just looked at me. They also didn't really move away much. The Gobies were awful. There were lots of them very shallow (live and dead) as well as deep (although not as many deep as is usual). It was awful to see so many dead ones starting at about 40' and going shallower. The California Sea Cukes were creepy. Lots of them that had vomited their guts and died. Also saw a Lion's Mane just sitting on the bottom pulsating and being poked at by crabs. The crabs also in general seemed lethargic. The Ciona savignyi covered a lot more surfaces than previously on the North Wall or perhaps just all the babies have gotten alot bigger. Seemed like lots, lots more. Very sad, sad dives. It really broke my heart to see all of these critters in such distress. How do I get a survey to you, Teresa? Is there an online form? Georgia

Received 9/17/2006

Bad news :(

I just got a call from Georgia Arrow, REEF AAT member, (Teresa, she sponsored the Sund Rock dives in July so you've met her), who just completed a couple of dives at Sund Rock. There were many critters either dead or dying. Here's a partial list. Teresa, I've asked her to write up her observations and email them to you for your HCDOP program. She says she'll submit a survey too.

5 ft - jillions of Coonstripe shrimp

10 ft. spot prawns

15 feet Sailfin sculpins out in the open

8 ft. Spiny dogfish shark

10 ft BIG copper rockfish

10-20 feet Blackeye gobies, many dead ones

24ft Giant pacific octopus sitting out in the open, not moving

30 feet and above: Many California sea cucumbers, clearly stressed and probably dead. (feeding appendages extended, spikes very thin, not moving or responsive)

The Ciona savignyi infestation on the North wall is now more than double the size it was in July.

She said visibility was HORRIBLE from the surface down to about 30 feet. The dogfish shark almost ran into her in the muck.

She'll write more later, but it makes me heartsick to hear this news.

- Janna :(

Received 9/8/2006

The canal appears to be on the edge of a low DO event. On September second there was little life below 32 feet.

Preceding this date we observed an interesting effect of the wind. Towards the end of August, before the northerly began blowing. The thermocline was 9 to 10 feet deep in the mid 60's f. After several days of continues northerlies, the warm layer had increased to 32 feet in depth !!

This is the same depth the animals stay above.

I am sure all your monitoring has already revealed this, but we think it is interesting.

Best,

Jerry Ehrlich

Received 9/5/2006

Thanks for the links. The observation about the wind is very interesting. We’ve had consistent light northerly wind here since late June / early July. In the last 5 years I don’t think we’ve had such a stretch of consistent, mild northerly breeze. I’ve been wondering if that northerly breeze had any effect on holding in the fresh surface water. Along with that we’ve had an unusually long stretch of warm weather and little or no rain. I’ve notice the past few weeks a layer of fresh water on the surface down to about 18 feet, I may have mentioned that on my last e-mail. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks, I expect the southerly winds kick in, the air temp to start cooling off and we should be seeing some rain. Yesterday was the first time in weeks that we had a southerly breeze.

We dove a wall just north of Jorstead Creek Sunday, a site I have not done myself before. I was surprised at the lack of rockfish. I saw a couple quillbacks, a couple browns, no ling cod. I don’t know if that’s normal for that site or not, I’ll be asking around to find out. Depth was 40 - 90 feet. Visibility was 15-30 feet. I found at least three batches of squid eggs, two at a depth of about 60 feet, one at about 30 feet. Thermocline was about 18 feet with a clear line between the cooler salt water below and the less salty water above. Temp at 40 fsw and below was 52(f) on my computer. I saw the usual assortment of inverts, but nothing like the populations we’ve been seeing at the sites 8 miles to the north. Second dive on Sunday was Elephant Wall, just north of the Hamma Hamma. I saw a lot more life there and everything seemed pretty normal except the lack of Vermillion rockfish.

don

Received 8/28/2006

There’s a layer of warm green water to a depth of about 15-18 feet. It doesn’t really look like a bloom but it’s hard for me to tell. It seems there’s a lot of fresh water in this layer, several divers over the weekend commented that it didn’t seem as salty as normal and I agree. The vis though this layer is less than 5 feet. Below 18-20 feet the visibility opens up to 20-30+. The temp in that layer is warm, probably mid to low 60’s but I didn’t have a gauge to measure it, warm surface temp is normal for this time of year.

Bottom temp is cool for this time of year, I think it’s cooled off over the last couple weeks. I remember July temp at 80 feet of 54-55(f). Yesterday I had 52(f) at 60-80 feet. I dove the west wall of Pulali Pt. I found Octo (on eggs) at 75 feet and lots of brown and copper and quillback rockfish. Lots of small to med size ling. The thing I thought unusual was finding vermillion rockfish at about 40 feet, usually I find them at about 70 feet.

Second dive was the Pinnacle near seal rock. Same surface conditions and water temp, maybe a little cooler at depth of 80 feet. Found lots of large and small ling from depth of 30 to 80 feet. Lots of Puget Sound rockfish at 60-80 feet. I didn’t find as many vermillion rockfish at 70 feet as I usually do. I found the usual wolf eels at 50 - 80 feet and the black rockfish at 40-60 feet. The unusual thing here was finding a few (not many) small spot prawns in the rocks at about 60-70 feet. I usually don’t see them except on deep night dives.

We found dogfish sharks at both sites at 40 - 80 feet, that’s normal for this time of year.

don

Received 8/21/2006

For those of you diving the vis has been good in “The Hood”. Yesterday at Flagpole and Elephant Wall had a mucky layer down to about 35 feet then it opened up to 20-30+ of horizontal vis. Saturday we had about the same at Pulali West Wall and Pinnacle.

Received 7/25/2006

I finally got a chance to dive myself last Sunday at Pulail Point and The Pinnacle. Vis was pretty good except for a bit of a bloom between 20-30 feet which I would call normal for this time of year. I saw the normal critters and they all looked healthy. One group of divers saw a mature wolf eel out in the open and he wasn’t too active, but considering everything else was OK I don’t think it was related to low O2. My max depth at both sites was about 75fsw. I found lots of vermillion and Puget sound rockfish at that depth. There is a LOT of hatches going on, especially at Pinnacle. There are clouds of tiny critters too small to identify. At Pinnacle I found the large Black rockfish I usually find and saw a few more Yellowtail rockfish than I’ve seen recently, many of them small. At the West wall of Pulali I found two Octopus dens, one with eggs and a healthy female. Other fish I found at both sites include painted greenling, ling cod, copper & quillback rockfish. I saw a couple large schools of what I believe was sandlance. There’s lots of Lion’s main jellies this year.

Received 6/25/2006

I did 4 dives with Don and Diane Coleman over the past 2 days and everything seemed 'normal' with fish populations being in the right depth zones. Nothing unusual, and all life seemed healthy. The invertebrates, especially the Sea Cucumbers, looked very healthy. (I've seen them looking horrid in low oxygen months) We dove West Pulali, Pinnacle, Flagpole point and Elephant wall. Rockfish populations seemed about normal.

I did find one Ciona savignyi (an invasive tunicate) at West Pulali Point that I will report to PSAT.

Thanks muchly,

- Janna :)

Received 4/5/2006

Visability has been good, last weekend we had 10-15 feet of vis down to about 20 feet, then it increased to 30+, then below 70 feet we had about 40 - 50 feet of horizontal viz. We've seen at least three wolf eel dens with eggs, several octo dens with eggs, and I think the Ling Cod eggs have mostly hatched. I haven't done many dives the last couple weeks so can't really give you my impression of populations.

Don

Received 3/7/2006

Thought I'd let you know the water has cleared up a lot over the last 10 days. I did four dives over the weekend at Pinnacle (near seal rock) and Rosie's Ravine (just south of the Duckabush) Visability was 20 - 30 at both sites. At Rosie's I saw lots of copper and quillback rockfish, a few canary rockfish. Lots of the usual mix of invertebrates including sea stars, california and burrowing sea cucumbers, decorator and kelp crab. Found active rock fish and wolf eels at a depth of 115 feet.

At Pinnacle we found at least 5 wolf eel dens and two octo dens. One octo den has eggs, one wolf eel den has eggs. Lots of ling protecting their eggs. Several large black rockfish around 50 feet and several vermillion rockfish around 70 feet. Copper and quillback and puget sound rockfish spread out between 50 and 80 feet. They were all active. Also saw the unual invertebrates. Found one golf ball crab which wast the first one I think I've ever seen. He was at about 70 feet.

Water temp was about 46(f). All the dives were late morning to early afternoon.

don

Received 2/22/2006

Visibility was reasonably good from the Hamma Hamma north to Pulali point in Jan and early Feb even with all the rain. We had a mucky layer on the surface down to about 20 feet. Last week when we had the strong northerly wind the vis took a big turn for the worse. Over the last weekend we had to go down 40 to 60 feet or more before we found horizontal vis of 10 or more. From the surface down to 20 or 30 I almost could not read the numbers on the computer on my wrist. Having said that, when we got down to 60 - 110 I was seeing lots of rockfish, a few octo, the usual wolf eels, and the normal invertebrates. All the fish seemed active. Species included vermillion, copper, quillback, black, brown and canary rockfish. Greenling included Ling Cod (lots of males guarding egg clusters), kelp (both male and female), and painted. Invertebrates included a variety of sea stars, California and burrowing sea cucumbers, plumose, painted and red beaded anemones. Lots of gobies, northern ronquil and pile perch. The sites I dove personally last weekend included Pulali west wall, Pinnacle, Flagpole, Elephant wall, Pulali south wall. I saw a mix of most of the above critters at all those sites. Depth of sightings were 60 - 110 feet.

Don

Received 11/27/2005

The vis and the diving this weekend was good. I did four dives myself but was with new or inexperienced divers so could not do a proper survey. My average dive depth was 40 - 60 feet and we saw wolf eels, vermillion, quillback, copper black and yellowtail rockfish. Also saw painted and kelp greenling. Other divers saw octopus and wolf eel in the 90 - 100 ft range. We all saw lots of large ling cod. Pile perch were abundant as well as puget sound rockfish. We also found "hatches" of critters that were too small to identify.

don

Received 11/22/2005

We've been diving a lot and my feeling is everything is looking pretty good. We're still seeing a good variety of critters to recreation limits of 130 feet. Today I had two tech divers that went to about 180 on a site just north of the Hamma Hamma river and they reported good populations of rockfish and ling and they all looked healthy and active.

don

Saturday, October 18, 2003

It appears the fall turnover has occurred and the low DO event is over, at least in the Sund Rock marine preserve. I dove with Jerry Ehrlich and Mike Beyer on Saturday. We spent 71 minutes underwater to depths of 80 feet and found all of the fish species in their normal habitats. Shiner and pile perch were observed throughout the range we dove. Copper rockfish were primarily observed from 25 - 80-ft. The wolfeels were in their dens from 35 - 77-ft. A vermillion rockfish was seen at 75-ft as well as two black rockfish, one on North Wall (75ft) and one on Sund Rock (35ft). Sea cucumbers were distributed throughout the depths weI dove. Some of the metridiums were still recovering, many were leaning over but still appeared to be alive. No octopus were seen. I did see an abandoned den with strings of eggs in it. I also saw dead Pycnopodia starfish, but can't remember if I saw any live ones. I don't recall seeing any clam shows. Visibility was only about 10ft due to particulates from the river runoff.

Sunday, October 12, 2003

Mike and I dove the Sund Rock/North Wall complex again on Sunday, October 12. The visibility has cleared up completely. There was very little organic matter in the water column. This made observation much easier than past weeks when visibility above 30 fsw was near zero at times.

We took a brief look at some structures at 100-140 depth range and saw very little alive. We did see one lethargic quillback about 6" long on a structure at 120 fsw. We also saw one flatfish, about 7" - 9 "in length, perhaps an english sole, could not tell for sure.

The base of North Wall @ 70 fsw had a few gobies and a small vermilion rockfish. This is more than we had seen before, but no larger vertebrates. There was more life above 30 fsw, but we also began to see dead fish. We counted 10 dead quillback rockfish, 1 copper rockfish, 2 dead starry flounders, 2 dead plain midshipman, and 3 dead northern pricklebacks. We observed these dead fish from 35 feet to the surface. The rockfish were all less than 12" in length.

Dive info:
TDT ( total dive time ) = 70 minutes
bottom gas = 21/40

After completing the dive we returned to the Rest A While Marina complex and noticed the beach to the north of the marina was littered with several dead rockfish. I do not have an accurate count, but it was more than a dozen. We did not observe mortality in last years low DO event. Hopefully the changing weather will improve the situation.

Jerry Ehrlich

Tuesday, September 9, 2003

We dive the Sund rock MCA weekly, year round. Forty-five dives on this site to date for the calendar year 2003. We use scooters and generally cover the entire preserve on a single dive. We use helium based mixes and our depth ranges from 160 fsw to the surface. Our average dive is about 70 minutes in length. This is provided as background information to add some sense of what we are doing and the kind of observations we are making.

Sunday, September 7th, we noticed four octopus dens...