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| Date: | August 16, 1998 | ||
| Location: | Keystone Jetty (USA) | ||
| Max Depth: | 54 feet | Bottom Time: | 54 min |
| Buddy: | Terina | ||
| Comments: | |||
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Keystone is a dive in Washington State that I like doing from time to time since it has great higher current life but is a shore dive that can be done safely. You also have the chance to see animals here that you usually only see on more exposed west coast sites due to the proximity to the entrance to Puget sound.
I always enjoy the dives here and this one was no exception. We saw 4 octopus all good size. Unfortunately they were all in their dens and not interested in divers. The jetty is actually a stone rubble breakwater for the nearby ferry dock and the rocks are covered with plumose anemones. These anemones hide a wide variety of animals. On this dive we found helmet crabs, heart crabs, sharpnose crabs, longfin gunnels, sculpins (including a great sculpin) and puget sound rockfish to name a few. Where the boulder meet the sand is where you will find the octopus dens. Also at this point the plumose give way to other encrusting invertebrates like orange social tunicates and various forms of bryozoans. In this area I also saw cockrell's dorids and a few small grunt sculpins hiding in cracks. As you get closer to the tip of the jetty and the current increases you find more bryozoans and lots of tube worms. You also start to see more schools of rockfish, I have often seen big schools of black rockfish in this area but not this dive. Coming back in the shallows we found an interesting isopod apparently protecting a batch of young, something none of us had seen before. It made for a great end to a dive. |
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