Ediz Hook, Outside Slope search

Pretty surgy at salt creek at 8am so went here instead. It was quite good. The ebb was running strong and getting stronger even at 10am (nearest currents on deep-zoom show SBE at 11:16am with max 0.5kt ebb at 2:42pm). There was at least a half knot at 11am, dpv required. Lots of big tan/yellow finger sponges 50-75ft deep. Not exactly like the ones at Deception…wonder what they are. Funnel sponge, baby lumpie, tons of medium size healthy sunflower stars (estimate 40+ over the dive), nudis on hydroids, great sculpins.

I've wanted to try this site ever since I saw the topography map. Indeed it was a very enjoyable dive! It takes a bit of a swim to get out to the slope though. At first I thought it was relatively bare area... all I saw between the surface and 90' was some perennial kelp and a crab pot. But on my way up I went further to the east and I followed up a nice vein of rocks which had a lot more life. The rocks were covered in nice fir hydroids, reminiscent of skyline or the san juans. Amongst the rocks there were occasional anemones and sponges! Some of these sponge species I have not seen before. Many of them were orange and quite branchy (all were about the size of my hand). It's clear that this area gets a lot of current, in fact it was picking up pretty quick by the time I was going up slope. I planned it so SBE would be toward the end of our dive according to the nearest noaa current station but it had already turned early by the time we splashed! I would not recommend this dive unless you have a lot of experience in current! Along the slope I found a juvie wolfeel with its mouth agape making threatening faces! I also saw the occasional anemone... A few fish-eaters, some painted anemones, and some sand rose anemones. One of the sand-rose anemones had a candy stripe shrimp on it! 🍭🦐 This dive didn't have much for fish, but there were a few bottom fish. Oh, and there was a shy male sealion in the area that I saw a few times during the dive. As I turned my head to dump my drysuit valve I noticed he was behind me looking at me