Skyline
Drive to Anacortes. Drive down Commercial until you get to 12th street (light at Safeway)... Take a left, and continue through two lights. Eventually you will get to where the ferry area begins, rather than going to the right section of the light at the Y go left... Drive about another half mile, and take a Left at the Skyline Marina entrance... Go for about a quarter of a mile to a 4 way stop... Go straight... Continue for another half mile or so, till you can turn right onto Cabana... Go to the turn around before the fence and park there... The dive site is the rocks about 200 yards west which you see to your right as you face the water... For more info look at "Northwest Shore Dives" 3rd edition.
No facilities right on site. Use the MacDonalds in town, the small mini-mart just inside the marina, or the public facilities at the marina (code needed for restroom). Limited parking in the Cabana Way cul-de-sac, especially during boating and fishing season.
This a cascading rock wall that starts in about 20 feet of water and goes deeper as you go west. The early part of the dive is designed to take you along the wall.
Swim out past the cabana about 200 yards from the entrance until you get to a kelp growth. Drop on the outside edge of that and find the wall. Let the current take you along out. The site if full of cracks and holes to look in. The bottom slopes away from the wall to deeper depths. On our dive we found 3 moderate sizes octopus in the open, a large one holed up and several monster Ling cod.
The wall is covered with stuff associated with high currents. Red sea urchins were plentiful and particularily large. Sponges and orange sea cucumbers were everywhere.
We rode the current to 85' and it was still moving out so we ascended slowly and started working our way back. The Anacortes dive shop indicated that current was less in shallower water and it seemed to be. We also may have gotten in about 15" early as we had slack just as we got out of the water. If you hit it right you should get a current reversal (not as strong) that will take you back. If not the current continues to take you out and you must be prepared to deal with this by going shallower, using hand-holds, or even a hard walk back along shore.
On the way up the slope we found a juvenile wolf eel that was very pretty. The kelp made for good handholds while working our way back.
Reviews:
Advanced site only. It is critical to dive this site on slack
before ebb ONLY and with small exchanges (4-7 foot tides).
Don't do this dive on extreme tides, even very small ones. There is the
potential for being swept out into the Sound. If the current continues
to take you out you must be prepared to deal with this by going shallower,
using hand-holds, or even a hard walk back along shore. It's a strout
swim out to the wall and a longer one back if you have to fight current.
Note: I found that going out on exchanges when there is essentially little to no flood (see 3/26/06 and 4/23/06) creates an outgoing current that does NOT reverse (at least it didn't on those days). It is not a rip-roaring current but you end up fighting it all the way back in so you don't want to drift too far. If you get to very shallow water near shore you can hand-over-hand and swim back without too much trouble.
Rosario Straight current indicator; use between Fidalgo Head-Burrows Island correction for determining slack. Get in the water 15-20" ahead of slack to catch the ride out and back.
Visibility is often limited here. I've seen it less than 4' in the winter when it should have been better, probably fresh flood water from the Skagit. Keep an eye on your buddy. It's easy to get separated with the low viz. and current.
Fishing boats and fisherman on shore. High current potential. Long swim out.
- Fritz Merkel