July 3, 2011 at Rockaway Beach

One day doesn't clear up the water, but knowing the site sure helps.  Ehren B. and I went diving at Rockaway Beach getting in the water around 11AM.  It was low tide and we just about walked out to the buoy.  We dropped down at 6 feet on the buoy and spent some time looking for the line down to the reef.  This should give you an idea of how murky it was as we couldn't find the line.  At one point I popped my head above the water to find Ehren as we lost each other just looking around for the line.  I went back down then Ehren went up to do the same thing.  I was waiting for him at the bottom of the buoy.  So at this point we were tired of looking for the line and Ehren and I headed off at about 58 degrees to find the main reef.  We unknowingly paralleled the line as we eventually came upon the brick with directions to the small reef and the remaining line down to the main reef.  I held the line loosely while we went down to the main reef.  As we hit 35 feet the darkness was just beginning to get noticeable and by the time we were at the other end of the main reef in about 45 feet of water it was definitely dark.  Normally, there's enough light you can see your gauges without using a light.  We moved along the main reef from North to South looking for the juvenile Wolf Eel that had been reported there but we couldn't find it.  At one point Ehren went over the reef to the other side and when he was facing away from me, he was within 5 feet, I couldn't see him at all and waited for him to turn around with his light.  Our diving was rewarded though with the sighting of a large Sail Fin Sculpin, at least 7 inches long, and the largest Clown Nudibranch either of us had ever seen.  It was about the size of my fist.  The sighting of the Sail Fin Sculpin was spectacular as we usually only see them on the deep reef at around 85 feet.  We made our way back up the line and back to the brick to the small reef.  I took the lead, we were in 17 feet of water, and followed the contour for a ways but couldn't find the reef.  I'm sure we were within just a few feet but the viz was so bad we could only see a couple of feet by this point.  We headed back towards shore with the viz becoming continually worse to the point that we finally surfaced and swam back to the shore.  Another great day of diving in Puget Sound.