Potlatch State Park

As expected, we found two large sunflower stars!

vis was mudd down to about 15' then started opening up to about 15' by 100'

Went looking for a particular sunflower star. On Sunday, we found a 6 legged sunflower star with the rest of the legs torn off. It did NOT appear to be wasting disease- but instead that it's legs were literally ripped off it. (yes I have photos/video if you are interested) If you see a 6 legged- adult sunflower star, please let me know- I'm super curious about this one! One of the legs was still moving so, that was a good sign, and the remaining body with 6 legs was still moving as well.

Today, I found between 10-15 sunflower stars. This is the spot for them! But, the sea whip filed seems to be decreasing in size. It is not as large as it was 3 years ago.

Great dive today! Nice thermocline to comfortable water temps in the high 40s at about 20’. Above that was too warm in the mid 60s.

We had 12 sunflower stars in our survey today. Enjoyed the sea whips which came as shallow as 50’!

Lots of sunflower stars again! This place is special for sunflower stars. Always find a few- now we find quite a few... and mostly adults... 30-60cm range- that's up to 2' across!

Great dive with 8 sunflower stars today. quite a few starry flounders and other flatfish, a fair number of giant plumose anemones, lots of giant sea cucumbers, and.... a sea angel!

First time diving here, came specifically to see if we could find sunflower stars. Saw 8 of them, some had to be at least 18” across! Seemed healthy and on the move! Very pea soup vis until 30 ft then clears up considerably. Dove on a very low -1.3 outgoing tide. Nice relaxing dive, no current. Will definitely come back to dive at a higher tide.

I know it's shocking to hear, but sunflower stars.... everywhere! We recorded 17 sunflower stars from 7 cm- 68cm across, ranging in depths from 26' to 65'.

This is the most I've recorded on a single dive here (or any other dive site in the Hood Canal/Puget Sound). I know I sound shocked every time, but did you hear: 17 adult sunflower stars? At this site at least, they are making a comeback! I look forward to the day we can say this at many more sites in the Hood Canal and even into the Puget Sound.

We were also greated by a pacific spiny dogfish while we were over the seawhips in the 90-100' depth range.

I love this site soo much- not for the structure (it's severely lacking structure), but for it's sunflower stars!

Visibility: less than 20' was 5-10'. 20-30' was 10-15'. 30-60' was 20' or greater.

A good handful of sunflower stars in a variety of sizes. two grunt sculpins at the abandoned crab trap at 40'. a number of red octopus throughout the dive site. Lots of giant sea cucumbers in piles and tons of spot prawns as well.

Great dive!

Potlatch deep: during our dive to 130’ we came across what I think were bacteria mats covering dead spot prawns as well as most (all but three) sea whips dead on the floor. There were a handful in the 100-110’ range than were leaning over and not looking good, but still alive with by polyps on them. The giant sea cucumbers didn't look good either. We also had a significant amount of tiny shrimpies in the water column obstructing visibility- they were super thick!during the ascent up the slope, we found 2 tiny red octopus and 2 larger red octopus.

Temp at 150’ was 49F, surface was high 50s.

Visibility was variable throughout the water column: shallows down to 20’ were 10-15’, then 20+ feet vis down to 100’ or so, then started getting muddy as we got deeper with visibility in the 5’ range at 150’.

Low oxygen event is appairant. There were a few larger sunflower stars in the 30-40’ range but we didn’t see any healthy , living sea whips.

Visibility is meh in the shallows as there is a significant fresh water layer at the surface creating a nice halotherm as you descend. After you get through the top 10' it opens up nicely to 30' or so down to about 100' after 100' it drops to about 10' and then by 140'. it drops to about 3' of visibility.

Water temp was about 49F today without any noticeable thermoclines.

The dive was a sunflower star survey focused around 30-50' range with 8 sunflower stars surveyed with no signs of sea star wasting disease today!

dive was at -3' low tide. visibility in the near shore shallows was mudd! out at the buoy line it was 5' or so. Depths from 13-30' or so was about 10' then down to about 140' or so the vis opened up to 20' or so. But, then as we dropped through 150' and into the 160' range over the flattened out bottom, the vis dropped to milky, muddy, 5' or less.

we had a wolf eel around 110' - that was something I haven't seen at this site in the past!. We also had a group of 4 or 5 sea lions visit us around 80' during our ascent time.

6 sunflower stars :)

Single dive heading into a minus 1.5 ft slack. Heavy organics 20 - 40 ft, otherwise clear above and below. Not bad for a spring low tide. 49 - 57F.

Abundant tube-dwelling anemones. A few Speckled Sanddabs fluttering away with their eyestalks reflecting divelights like miniature headlights. A dinner-plate sunflower star at 110 ft, another at 90 ft.

Only found one sea star at around 50 feet. However, once we cleared the muck layer on the return and hit the shallows at around 10 feet, we found lots of little critters and had fun poking around. Boy that tide was low, I swear we had to walk 1/2 mile back 🙃🤣🐙🦀

Hood Canal is having a moment. Today, the layer of plankton bloom fell away at 33 ft...or 10 meters or 1 atmosphere hydrostatic pressure or 2 atmospheres absolute...you get the idea :). Visibility felt better downslope but still not great. 55 - 48F.

We had Dungeness with the cantankerous disposition of red rock crabs - one carting their prize of an egg yolk jelly off into the depths, another lunging at me from the bottom like a frustrated dog on a leash. But also a fresh crop of fine young Roughback Sculpins, whose parents taught them to never trust strangers. Sampling without replacement over 2 dives, I saw 3 sunflower stars from dinner plate to serving platter size.

a couple sunflower stars, crabs, flat fish

Chunks of detritus hung motionless in the water column like fruit suspended in Jell-O, yet light penetration was surprisingly good to 85 ft.

A sampling of the diversity this time: red octopus, Slender Cockscomb, and Bay Goby. Big left-eyed flatfish and juvenile right-eyes keep you checking which way the head goes. Two dessert-plate sunflower stars, plus one dinner-plate.

-Lorne