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.

Welcome to Seacrest Park

This post was originally written 7 26 2009

As much as I enjoy a quick jump into the frigid water, many of my friends or their wives who want to hang out on the weekend don’t.    What I needed, was a place to swim where my non-sea-otter associates could tag along in the relatively dry refuge of a sea kayak.

Google searches and calls around town revealed dozens of places to rent a kayak.  It wasn’t until the day of the outing that I discovered the deception:  They rent sea kayaks, but not on the sea.  There is literally only ONE place in all of Seattle that would rent us a sea kayak, and that was Alki Kayak Tours.  After a half day of incredulous calls to every renter of sea kayaks, I confirmed that there was no other place in Seattle to get a kayak for the Puget Sound.   So the stretch of beaches between the commercial waterway and Alki Beach proper were the only choice for such a group outing.

That's one fast drop-off.

We arrived and easily located the rental office.  They liked the idea of snorkeling the sound and were very very forthcoming with advice.  They warned that large passing boats would create surprise wave surges that made the area surprisingly treacherous – so we were told to avoid the nearby pier where the water taxi lands in West Seattle.  The ammount of fishing going on over there added to my hesitation to plumb the depths beneath the ferry landing.  Soon the kayakers were given a basic orientation and procedures speech and then in the water.   My swim buddy and I soon followed.

Just before getting in, we observed bubbles not 20 feet out from shore.   Perplexed, we stood and watched them as they drew nearer.  Soon divers emerged in full regalia.  I started asking them questions right away.  They told us that the visibility was fantastic here and that they had just been down below where they spotted a giant octopus.  I couldn’t believe that this would be 20 feet from shore, but as soon as I dove in, the precipitous drop-off was obvious.   Visibility was maybe 50 feet, but after paddling a small distance from shore, the bottom disappeared completely.

This was a huge Jelly.

Just 40 feet out, the effect was disconcerting.   I found myself swimming in a sea of pure greenish-blue nothingness. I guess that’s just a sea of…sea.  I don’t know how deep the water was, but it was very deep.  I could see distant jelly’s beneath me, all around me, and some of them were startlingly huge.   Their long trailing tendrils were easily 20 feet long in some cases.   This put me on edge.  Without any other visual cues other than the snowlike litter of tiny white marine critters, punctuated at times with the looming yellow menace of yet another giant jelly, it was like swimming in endless space.  You couldn’t tell if you were seeing into 1000 feet of clear water, or two feet of cloudy murk. I often found myself sticking my head up out of the water just to make sense of time and space itself.  I had no way to gauge my speed, direction, or much of anything else.  A creeping fear of the unknown began to assert itself.  Then came the strange noises.

Being so near a shipping lane, the water was alive with the sound of clanking, banging, gurgling large boats.  I played for a while at trying to match sounds to certain boats.  A dodgy looking old ferry made the sound of a giant metal chain being dragged over a pile of cans in hell.  A large cargo vessel sounded like it was propelled by somebody hitting a dumpster with a bat.

Maybe 20 feet beneath the camera.

Thus, although we began following our Kayak friends we soon broke off pursuit and made for some interesting-looking pilings that were sticking out of the water nearer to shore.

I remembered my earlier Tacoma swim and the potential hazards around broken pilings, so we proceeded with extreme caution towards them – mindful of the unpredictable surge of waves that could come at any time.

I continually dangled my arm and camera as low as I could to make sure I could still see them clearly – having a hard time believing that the soft green we proceeded through was really clear water.

Eventually the clarity was evident far beneath us, the first broken pilings covered in giant anemones other sea life.  As we neared the pilings that still emerged from the water, we saw a dramatic uptic in the diversity and energy of the water around us.  Broken remains of an ancient dock emerged scores of feet below, and as we neared shallower water the pilings crept closer to us until we ended face to face with one large trunk that was absolutely covered in comically large marine organisms.

Check out the size of that star fish!

HUGE sea stars of every kind hugged these ancient logs that swayed menacingly back and forth in the tide.   That motion made me wary of this place as being trapped beneath a falling piling entered my already heightened imagination.   Still, it was worth checking out.  We made sure to avoid touching the pilings as they seemed as alive as any coral that I’ve ever seen.

We followed them all the way back to shore where a particularly nice, already fallen, piling lays across the bottom.  It’s covered in spindly legged crabs, giant sea stars, feeding sea perch, and huge anenomes.   We lingered here for some time.

This star fish has big buns.

Eventually we followed the coast and discovered, upon rounding a headland, that our further progress was barred by a boat ramp and dock.   We beached ourselves and walked north along the shore until we found another place to put in.

The second beach along the “Alki strip” is a sometimes-beach that only really shows up when the tide is out.   We had to scramble down a talus field of rocks to get to it, but once in, we discovered beds of sea grass, schools of sardine, and lots of amazing life.  Of particular interest was a VERY dense school of some kind of long finger-sized fish that moved like a tornado into the deeper water.  The word that came to mind was ‘bait ball’.   Sadly the camera had already been filled, so instead of filming of photographing them, we had to just enjoy the show and frolic with the salty little fellows instead.

"Second Beach" has very clear water.

The water here was clear and deep.  As we proceeded neared a rock wall that separated us from the nearby boat ramp and dock, the bottom once again quickly disappeared from sight.

As we were getting out, we finally witnessed some of the surge that the Kayak shop had warned us about.  Large waves more suited to hawaii than Seattle came crashing to the shore and I was glad that this hadn’t rolled in while I was near one of the pilings.

Huge Spindly Crab.

It was a thoroughly interesting area and a great three-hour swim.  Given the location’s proximity to some truly top-notch swims as well as it’s proximity to shipping lanes, I probably won’t be back any time soon for a swim – but I will definitely go there again to get my Kayak on in the near future.  Then again, its popular for divers and if you are in mixed company, you can swim while others can boat.  If you find yourself here with nothing to do, drop on in – the water’s fine.

Seacrest out.

Ballard as you have never seen it before.

7-17-09 5:00 pm

Sunny 82 degree

High Tide

Some Chop

53 degree water

100 foot vis

Holy cow. I didn’t know Seattle Snorkeling could get this good.

What a great way to test the new wet suit!

Walk the scenic path to the North-most beach access or plod along the sandy way to this northern most part of Golden Gardens Beach and put in for the Northward “right rocks” run.

We put in at the far North-East side of the beach and made our way out about 50 feet and saw an amazing life-scape in the seaweed beds.  Here’s where the crabs have been hiding.   We lingered here watching the sole, sanddabs and other flat fish as well as hermit crabs and dungeness.  We had 30 foot visibility at this point as we played in 20 foot water.

We headed North along the rocks but about 40 feet out from shore, our eyes on the shifting bed of loose seaweed below.

Striped Sea Perch near "Green Joe"

Swimming over this sea-lettuce will shorten your trip unless you are immune to all forms of motion sickness.  This stuff has a way of moving in the water that makes the rocks appear to swoosh back and forth in a rhythmic tide when it’s really you and the sea-lettuce moving.  Once you realize this, you don’t have long before you start feeling woozy.  My buddy and I had to beach ourselves on a piled of long concrete slabs like mermaids in the pounding surf until out stomachs stopped lurching.  I nick-named the place “mermaid beach”.

Seen here, the "Green Joe" feature is named for its sea-sick discoverer.

After recovering, we went on to an interesting rock feature that drew our eye.   As we rounded the headland, the character of the water and the life changed DRAMATICALLY.  Visibility opened up to about 100 feet.  The characteristic green of the sound turned Hawaii blue on us and suddenly there was life everywhere.  A school of juvenile Steelhead kept checking me out.   Then there was a dense school of what looked like Pacific Sardines.  Then we rounded the rock and were stunned to see a school of about 50 large Surf Perch hiding in the shade of the rock.   It was amazing.

When my buddy and I were looking at the photos over pints at Kings Hardware, I asked the waitress where she thought the pictures were taken:

“Well it’s Hawaii isn’t it?”

I proudly corrected her, “Nope.  That’s Ballard – two hours ago.”

I’m not sure she believed me.

UPDATE:  SWIM 6, Golden Gardens Right Rocks 2

7-18-09 5:00 pm

Sunny 85 degree

Ebbing High Tide

Choppy

53 degree water

100 foot vis

I went back the next day and made an important discovery.

I didn’t bring my friend with the camera this time, so no photos and trust me when I say that’s a shame.

But at least I FINALLY convinced my wife to come with me.  She got outfitted at Cheka Looka with a 4/3 wetsuit and some new fins and a snorkel from DiscountDivers.com (their physical store is over on Westlake). We walked up to the beach and faced a fairly brisk in-shore wind that whipping up the surf into something even choppier than what had made me sick yesterday.  I resolved to power through it.

When we got in, the visibility was passable @ 20 feet, but not as good as yesterday.  The surf was just churning things up too much and we were swimming in sea-salad.  Still, we decided to press on and see if things got better to the North.  We learned in swim #3 to never accept poor conditions but to check farther along the shore.  I told her about the shifty sea-lettuce and its affects, but she wanted to go and see it for herself while I followed the nice and stable sand and rocks down to “Green Joe”.    So I muddled along, seeing the occasional Sole skittering away beneath me and feeling a little down that the visibility wasn’t as good as the day before, but I hoped there would still be a show around the corner like the day before.

When I looked up to check on her, she was pretty far out.  Maybe 100 feet from shore.  That made me nervous since I have read a lot about the currents up here and don’t know too much about the boat traffic either.  I REALLY wished I had brought a “diver down” flag with me to float near by, and will do so on my next trip.  I put my face down and swam farther along the coast, past mermaid beach, and wondered why she wasn’t seasick yet from the dancing weeds.   They were a lot worse today as the surf was really churning.  I looked up and she was…gone.

I spun all around, anxiety creeping up as I couldn’t make out any sign of her at all until – ah, there she was, 250 feet out from shore.   What could she be DOING out there?  It had to be WAY too deep to see a thing in this mess, so I wondered if she was in trouble maybe.  Well, I would have to go out and get her to show her the real places to swim – or at least to check on her.

I took a deep breath and put my fins together for some full body swimming and was out to her in 30 seconds or so.  But as I got near, I knew why she was out that far, and it nothing to do with distress.  She had discovered something amazing…a Forrest that was every bit as filled with life as out best trip in Hawaii in water with 100 foot visibility.  Long spindly legged crabs that would span two feet if stretched out made their way among ling cod.  Huge purple and sun-burst stars defied normal scale and that school of Striped Sea perch from Yesterday…was just the small handful from the REAL school that lived out here.

Large eels, Rock Fish, Ling Cod, big Crab…And the plants here, they are just beautiful.  If I get a camera, I’ll post images of this place right away.

We have nick-named the forrest “Mermaid Forrest” since it’s right by “Mermaid Beach”.

Impression: Quite simply, it blew the doors off of every other trip so far.  Golden Gardens Right Rocks is the best run I’ve found.

Lesson: Try more sights that are farther off shore.  The water is more clear and the variety more amazing than the surf-hugging that I’ve been doing.

Safety Note: I will need to bring a “Dive Flag” with me on any trip where I’m venturing into waters where there may be boats.