Nordic Joe's Seattle Snorkel Guide

Weather: 44 F, Mostly Cloudy, no rain

Water:  High tide, ebbing, Low 40s, 50′ vis.

Date / Time: 11:00am – 2:00pm – December 20th

Location:  Ballard, Golden Gardens Right-Rocks / Mermaid Forrest

Braced for the cold this time, I brought my wife’s gloves and swim socks to afford me some protection against the cooler winter surface water.  I also made sure to wear the longest undies I could find, and added my snorkel bob rash-guard for good measure.   Not the most bundled up guy in the sea, but for me it proved to be enough that I enjoyed a 2 hour swim with only minor discomfort (easily outweighed by the joy of swimming in the sound).

I was determined to revisit Mermaid Forest at Golden Gardens in the winter so that I could observe what seasonal changes might occur there.   For the newer readers, I’ll explain that Mermaid Forest is a line of Sargassum Muticum that edges  coast on the north side of golden gardens.  When we discovered it this summer, it was the best location to be found for snorkeling in Seattle, bar none.   The diversity of marine life there was simply astounding and it was all within a foot or two of a waiting camera.  Huge schools of sea perch, giant emperor stars, fat sun-stars, all kinds of crab, ling cod, rock fish, perch, eels (actually eel-like fish) – you name it. It was entirely like visiting a tropical reef where all the fish just had better fashion sense.

These Anemones cling to rock features and convert piles of rubble into living reefs.

The only issue that swim ever had was that on the hottest days, the dark sargassum would absorb the sunlight and actually heat the surrounding water to around 65 degrees, and this could cloud it up a bit as the plankton and algae bloomed in the warm and nutrient rich waters around the forest.  I had heard that in the winter, this effect is eliminated, so I was VERY eager to introduce this fantastic spot to another swimmer.

We struck out from the shore, pleased to see the vicious current we encountered last time was completely gone, and made our way through VERY clear and beautiful waters.   There seemed to be an uptick in star-fish and moon snails along the bottom, but there was little else to see.  As we paddled out, checked our progress against the shore and my own instructions for finding the forest again:

1.  Put in at the rightmost rocks at golden gardens.  Swim out directly toward the sea until you are getting nervous that you might be too far out (around 700 feet).  You should still be able to see the bottom.   If you can’t, you are too far out.

2. From there, proceed parallel to the shore and you will find the forest when you are parallel to the feature that we named “mermaid beach” – where long slabs of concrete from a jumble on the shore.  The forest stretches from this point, all the way past the feature called “green joe”.

Yet here I was, moving along the coast, almost to Green Joe, and there was nothing but water, sand, star fish, and a few dark spots on the sea floor below.

Had somebody removed the forest?  S Muticum is an invasive foreign species from Japan that competes with the local eel grass and kelp.   There had been talk of eradication…but last thing I had read suggested this was truly impossible.  Had some environmental disaster fallen upon the area?

My swim buddy proposed that the forest dies in the winter.  I doubted that as I’d read just how tough this stuff was to get rid of.

After an hour or so, we gave up on the clearly absent forest and headed in toward Green Joe.  The system of rocks around it functioned like a reef and there was always a bounty of life to bee seen there.  Yet as we neared, I spotted nothing but larger and larger star fish – apparent refugees from the missing seaweed forest.  Some crabs that I had only seen clinging to seaweed before were on some of the rocks.  What was most notably missing was the huge school of sea perch that used to shelter in the lee of the big rock itself as if on-break from the goings on in the relatively urban environment of the nearby seaweed forest.  I circled the area – looking for any sign of larger life – but the place was just abandoned.

We made our way back along the shore-break rocks and looked for gunnels in the rocks.  We spotted a few bold crabs, some penfish, a small school of perch that mocked the once grand display the area offered.   This place in winter was the same as on land – an animal can still be seen here and there, but it is primarily in hibernation.   This is an observation confirmed after some research when I got home.   I looked up more information on S Muticum and discovered this:

S. Muticum’s  Lateral branches detach in the summer or autumn, leaving a short perennialbasal stem to overwinter.

- Nobanis Invasive Alient Species Fact Sheet

So the forest will return in the spring -and it remains for now as a forest of deciduous trees in the winter – spare and barren.

Lesson:  Winter swims will require more stable ecosystems such as rock-reefs, ship-wrecks, or perhaps kelp forests.

This refugee from the missing forest is making due on a near-by rock.

I spotted a kelp forest right by the Seattle Aquarium – I might ask them for permission to explore the vicinity of their building!  Otherwise, I may have to suck up my pride and try a swim at Discovery Park.  It’s one of the few public beaches I haven’t ventured into yet.  There’s a reason, and I’ll share it in my first post on Discovery Park, coming soon this winter.

The frosty shoreline added a sense of accomplishment to the winter swim.

Air Temp: 21 F

Weather: Mostly sunny

Tide:  Low, ebbing

Date / Time: 1:00pm – 1:40pm – December 7th

Location:  Ballard, Golden Gardens Right-Rocks / Mermaid Forrest

My first attempt to venture into winter waters was brief.

My buddy showed up this weekend, and as a birth-day favor to old Nordic Joe, he’s agreed to try out the winter water so that we can see what’s what with a winter snorkel here in Seattle.  I’m told that the water doesn’t change temperature much and that it’s all the same when we get in, so it may be a way to beat the crowded beach parking and get the whole place to ourselves.   My questions were: How will the conditions differ?   Given that the “unchanging temperature” advice I’ve gotten about the winter waters of the sound all comes from Scuba divers, How will the water temperature differ nearer the surface?  What’s the life like at this time of year?   Does it thin in the winter like life on land, or continue to flourish as usual, 365 days a year? Is the water really more clear in the winter?

To answer these questions, we suited up on a frosty morning and by 1:00 pm, we were at the water’s edge – looking upon a choppy and temperamental sea-scape.   The sun goes fast in the winter, and of the first things we noticed planning this trip was that it would be a challenge to align the ideal water conditions (ebbing high tide) and the proper light conditions (as near solar zenith as possible).  AS such, we found ourselves near zenith, putting into a VERY low tide.

Heedless, I splashed into it and quickly assumed the snorkeler’s position.   My face ached terribly for a long time.  There was almost no visibility at all.   I was reminded of the terrible Tacoma swim.  Pure green pea soup.  Of course, this was low-tide and I was still near the shore.  I began to swim out from shore and found clear water surprisingly close to the breaking waves.  I looked to shore.   My buddy was slowly acclimating, stepping sideways deeper into the sea.   My face continued to send me ice-cream-headache twinges of pain as my sinuses adapted to the chill.   Eventually I was conditioned to it, and my buddy was comfortable proceeding.   Neither of us appeared brave enough to call this thing off.

We both observed that the water seemed significantly colder.   Low 40′s.   My 5 mil suit, sans gloves or footies, seemed extremely spare now.   I wondered how I would fare over a longer swim.

Yet the winter also provided some merciful gifts to the Seattle Snorkelers.  The low tide yielded quickly to bright and clear water and we made out quite a distance from shore and prepared to head along the shoal’s edge toward mermaid forrest.   After about ten minutes of strenuous paddling, kicking, and full body swimming, we both observed that very little progress was being made along the shore. The wind-driven current today was too much.  We could go out from shore, or toward shore, but any progress northward seemed impossible.

We met as two bobbing torsos in the middle of all this freezing chop.

A-a-a--ah-awe-sss-s-s-so-me

“What do you think”? my buddy asked.

“I think we are much farther from shore than we meant to be.”

“Yeah.    These currents are terrible.”

I put my face in and observed the bottom streaking by as floated rapidly south and out to sea.

“Let’s give it one more try.” I suggested.

So we again bent our backs to the sky, bobbed our heads and legs like dolphins and swam with all but the last of our strength.  We made it maybe 300 feet in 10 additional minutes.

Giving up, we decided to let the current take us back to shore, swimming only against the outgoing tide, and we took our pleasure in the moon snails below which I tried several times to dive toward for a close-up photo.   We saw some needle fish, crabs, stars, and tons of moon snails on the sandy flats just near the beach itself.

Our final conclusions:  The water temperature is bearable, even in my modest suite, but gloves and dive socks would be a big help.  Maybe also a jacket.  Visibility is indeed better in the winter, even in low tide.  The sea’s temper however, is more of an issue during the winter when storms can roll in easy and strong winds can drive swift currents that could easily foul up the unobservant swimmer.

We decided, after playing near the beach for a while, to return on a day with calmer currents.

Swim Buddy's 14 mil core protection has him sitting pretty.

Moon Snail is about 1' long.