Ed Gullekson, Mike Snow, and Pieter Booth met at Cove 2 at 3:30 for the first dive of the eve. After blabbing for way too long, we entered the 46 degree water at about 4:15. We went down at the third buoy and followed the boundary line down to about 55 feet where the 25+ foot viz. deteriorated to about 6 feet. On our way, Mike spotted a little red octo. out in the open. It was almost in the same place Ed and Pieter spotted one on Monday. The poor viz persisted to about 80 feet. Ed speculated it might have been due to the barge activity at the passenger ferry terminal just before our dive. There was no thermocline, so this seemed like a plausible explanation. We then made our way to the rock piles where visibility increased a little. At the tops of the I-beams we headed diagonally across the silt barrens to the pick-up-sticks pilings. Here we spotted the decorated warbonnet that has be in the same place all month and Mike spotted a grunt sculpin. All three of us explored the honey bear but did not see the huge GPO that has been a regular since New Years, but we did see its large ling cod lair-mate. We surface after a 50 min. dive to a beautiful evening with the Seattle skyline reflected in the still water like a double string of sparkling jewels. I sure love this place!

Ed and Mike headed home after the first dive and Pieter and Brian entered the water a little after 6 at the N. end of the boat launch. We explored the steep slope off the boat launch between about 45-70 fsw. The bottom is mostly 2-6 in. gravel down to a depth of about 60 fsw then turns to silt. We came across several large tires and other debris like beer cans. Brian found (and kept) a pristine crab gauge and found a crab pot in pretty decent condition. We left the crab pot on the shore for someone else to find. We surfaced to the N. of the boat launch along the rock wall. The slope is extremely steep in this area and there is some interesting structure. Among the critters spotted were decorated warbonnet, broke-back shrimp, lots of spot prawns, and two grunt sculpins in bottles. We kept 2 harbor seals well fed on this dive, and I'm convinced one of them fell in love with me as it was practically rubbing up against me while executing pirouettes near the bottom. The boat launch dive is really only safe to do in the winter at night, but it is definitely worthwhile.