MBDC Dive Site Review


Love that surface swim!
 Location
Head towards the Edmonds Ferry. When you come around the last curve stay in the left hand lane. You will come to a stop light. Turn left and go across the railroad tracks. Turn left on to Dayton St. (By the way Edmond's Underwater Sports is just down the road to your right if you need a refill). Continue past the marina and eventually the road will curve around to the right. The parking is somewhat limited here so may want to drive up close to dump your gear off and then park. There is a small park here for a picnic on a nice day. Sanicans are available.
Description:
This is a marine sanctuary so don't even think about doing any harvesting here. The focus here as the title says is the 'dock'. The dock is 'T' shaped. Most of what you want to see is out at the end. On the way out it is shallow and there is not much to see. At the end of your swim you will be rewarded with large cabezon and ling cod. Occasionally, you will see an octopus.
Reviews:
I have never been able to time the slack right at this site. There were times when I tried to dive it exactly to the directions in Northwest Shore Dives (my Bible) and it was anything but slack, and there were times when I just grabbed a buddy and jumped it w/o even looking to see if it was low or high tide, and it was perfect. So what the hell, I still try to time it to slack, but I don't count on it.

My favorite part of this site is the cross at the end of the T. On a bright sunny day, the light beaming down between the pilings through the emerald water has an eerie look. There's a lot of life around the pilings, and I've seen a lot of moon snails at the shallower end. Find a cockle and feed it to a sunstar (lots of them here). It's fun watching the cockle kick out away from the sunstar to keep from being eaten.

Reviewed by Greg Goebel

One of the more interesting parts of the dive is down the North slope, directly north of the dock. It is covered with large rocks and levels out at about 85' where there is a tire reef (I haven't been deeper but am told it keeps going). There are often large schools of ratfish in the area. Under the dock are lots of Sunstars and clam shells. On a day with sun and good viz. the light through the pilings can be very pretty. Depth under the dock is 40-55 feet.

Fritz Merkel

Special Hazards

There can be boats docked here. If so, find another place to dive if there is one at the pier. It's long swim out to end of the pier. Also make sure that you have the currents judged correctly. The currents at end of the dock can be stronger than you want to try swimming against. If the wind is blowing strong I would suggest thinking about diving some place else like Alki Cove 1 or 2.

J. Syre

The trick to diving here safely is do not venture out of site of the pilings, especially on the way back in. (There's nothing but sand on either side anyway). If you have to surface swim in and the current is kicking up, take it one or two pilings at a time, e.g. hang on to one piling, rest a bit, then kick hard to the next one, hang on and rest, then repeat the process until your back in to shore. This is where a good knife comes in handy, you may need to sink it into the pilings to use as a hold. The current is strongest just before you reach the cross of the T.

Greg Goebel

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