Puget Sound Diving Locations

Washington State Puget Sound dive sites
Alki Pipeline
The Alki Pipeline dive is located in west Seattle at Alki Beach Park. It is a shore dive site that requires little experience and is easy to access with parking right at the park on Beach road. The dive takes place along the wall and pipeline that goes out into the ocean. The maximum depth of this dive is 30 Feet where the Pipeline ends. With the depth being so shallow it is possible to get a large amount of bottom time compared to a deeper area. The makeup of the ocean floor and with how protected the area is there is often very good visibility with very little silt and sand is stirred up. On an average day visibility will be 15 ft - 20 ft but even up to 30 ft. Day Island Wall is located 45 feet out from the public access beach and offers a wall dive with views of a large amount of sea life. The site is in a high current area so when planning to dive here careful consideration of tides and currents must be used when making a dive plan. The dive site is meant for intermediate, to experienced divers because of the currents and depth of the wall. The south end of the wall is 40 ft to 100 ft and the north end is 25 ft to 50 ft. The wall has a large variety of sea life including octopus and wolf ells that live in the wall. Lingcod, dogfish and heart crab can also be seen along the wall as well as a large amount of sea anemones and sea stars. There is a boulder patch near the north end that can be the home to a large amount of sea life.
Edmonds Underwater Park
Edmonds Underwater Park is located in Edmonds just north of the Edmonds Ferry. There is very easy access from the beach with the whole park map printed outside the bathroom. It provides a place to create your dive plan and reference the map. The site can be dived by all experience levels and offers a very large area that takes multiple dives to cover. The park is maintained by volunteers that gather and upkeep the park every Sunday. The park offers a relatively shallow dive of on average 35 ft and has innumerable wrecks and terrain to explore. The wrecks begin with the sinking of the Alitak a 94 ft tug that sank of top of the already sunken dry dock. The Triumph, another tug but slightly smaller at 70 ft was sunk and now rests with many others throughout the park. The wrecks offer protection and are now man made reefs for many animals. Rockfish, anemones and stars can be seen among the wrecks as well as huge lingcod and gabezon. The dive begins at 30 ft and goes up to 80 ft with lots of sea life to see in between. When diving to the east there will be a large area with tires and this is the recommended turn around point. Beyond the tires there is a large fishing dock with lots of fishing line in the water that can get caught on gear. Many dive shops use this area when certifying new divers so there is a large amount of underwater traffic. The area is also affected by rainfall; if there are heavy rains a few days in advance of a dive visibility will be minimal.<ref name=":0" /> Bibliography Evaluation
Sunrise County Beach
Sunrise county beach is a park located north of Gig Harbor south of Colvos Passage. The site itself is subject to very strong currents from Tacoma Narrows. The dive takes place along the wall that is about 45 ft from the shore and the top starts 35 ft and does to a depth of 60 ft.<ref name=":0" /> The wall is full of crevices and dens where wolf ells and octopus often live.The animals often leave their dens to swim out and investigate divers as they pass along the wall. The wall is also home to many other forms of sea life such as sea urchins, rockfish and sea stars. The access to the dive site is more rough than many of the other dives around with a steep hill that has to be climbed down to make it to the beach.<ref name=":2" /> Many divers prefer to make this a boat dive in order to avoid the trail.<ref name=":3" />
Owens Beach
Owens Beach is located at Point Defiance Park and is easily accessed from the park and a small walk across the beach. The dive is more advanced and must be dove with and experienced diver’s certification. The dive takes place at 90 ft and can go as deep as 110 ft.<ref name=":0" /> This site is one of the most common places to observe six gilled sharks during their matting season. They prefer the much larger depths most of the year but during the mating season they come inland to shallower water where divers can have a chance to observe them. This dive is often a short one due to the depth and the rapid build of nitrogen levels in the blood.<ref name=":1" /> A thorough dive plan must be made with decompression stops planned and support with other divers in order to have a safe dive. Like all dives you should not dive without a dive buddy but for Owens Beach it is especially important to have a dive buddy who you have experience with and work well with as a team.
Bibliography Review
With 5 sources, the article is founded on a diverse source of information. The sources are either websites or online PDF documents. 3 of the sources are from .gov websites, which provides integrity to the information. Of the other 2 .org websites, one is photography page (specifically emerald sea photography) with information posted about dive sites around the Puget Sound area. The creators of this website are amateur photographers who have a passion for diving and photographing marine life, they provide first-hand experience of dive sites and only sell a dive guide book. The other .org site is the marker buoy dive club. Their website is designed to draw in divers interested in getting involved in an active diving community, and thus paying club dues. Other than that, they provide useful information about diving in the Seattle area. The information seems accurate as the source is from firsthand diving experience of experienced diving professionals.
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