 Waadah
Island
Description
Waadah island is located in the mouth of Neah Bay, west of
Port Angeles on the Olympic peninsula. Enormous volumes of
nutrient-rich Pacific Ocean water flow into and out of Puget
Sound through the strait, and support an amazing abundance
of marine life. Such large volumes of moving water can also
present some fairly challenging currents for divers, so diving
is only possible during the slack tide. The northwestern tip
of Waddah Island fingers off underwater to form a series of
near-parallel running reefs. This is a good dive site for
divers of all experience levels because there are shallower
reefs for beginners that are equally as inhabited as the deeper
reefs that more experienced divers will want to venture down
to. When venturing deeper it becomes nearly impossible to
avoid multilevel diving as divers cruise from reef to reef,
so dive computers should be considered essential equipment.
When diving some of the shallower reefs this site can be accessed
by shore or from the breakwater that connects the island to
the mainland, but for deeper diving this site is a live boat
pickup site.
The reefs form invertebrate-encrusted
corridors and anemone-rimmed ravines. Divers can explore a
ravine, then swim up and over a wall, and then set off through
the next ravine. Wolf eels are frequently found here as are
the more elusive octopi. The rocks form a living tapestry
of marine life. There are giant anemones, huge puffball sponges,
and expansive colonies of encrusting sponges. There are seastars,
brittle stars, scallops, hard and soft corals, hydroids, Puget
Sound King crabs.... one can't even begin to list all the
animals that be found here!
Like Duncan Rock, Waadah Island is definitely
one of the PNW's premiere dive sites! Both of these dive sites
are remote enough that they are relatively seldom visited
by divers, so the reefs are still very much in pristine condition.
When diving these sites please dive responsibly and conscientiously
to ensure that these reefs, and the fragile marine ecosystems
that they support, will continue to thrive and flourish for
years and decades and generations to come!
Location
Olympic Peninsula
Other Interesting Information
Check out a video
featuring this dive site!
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