ORCA TUG

R. Jack's Report-

So a bunch of us did the Wreck of the Orca today on scooters from shore.  Its a 55ft tug up in Port Hadlock which apparently sank in ~1999.  We had coordinates from NOAA's AWOIS and hemmed and hawed on shore for a couple of minutes with the GPS.

Lundy, BDub and myself splashed first.  Our strategy was to follow the bearing given to us by the GPS underwater out to the wreck.  Laura James and Ray splashed a couple of minutes behind us.  Their strategy was to scooter out on the surface and descend on the mooring buoy which was very close to where the bearing pointed and where the wreck was likely to be tied up when it sank.

I had my big reel along and my team decided to run line (well I did, mostly), 1/2 for the practice, 1/2 to give us something to help search with if we missed the wreck.  I figured we could circle and hopefully snag it then reel ourselves back to it.  Lundy was out primary navigator cause he had an X-scooter mount.  I had a compass on the hull of my Gavin and BDub used a wrist compass.  I tied off to a convenient piling and off we went.  Lots of soft mud, scant tie-offs.  We stayed on the trigger solid.  After exactly 8 minutes on the trigger, bingo, wreck of the Orca.  I cut and tied off the line and then shot a bag for team 2's approach.

We swam around the wreck twice peering into holes.  There were some blue and copper rockfish on it.  No lings or cabezons.  AN occasional nudibranch and lots of plumose anemones.

Just as we returned to the bag (which had slid a little along the line cause I had lazily clipped it in) team 2 arrived.  The wreck is apparently about 150' from the buoy so they had to follow the smb.  I pulled the smb down and we then scootered the wreck while LLJ video'd.

We left the wreck around 48 minutes and scootered home.  I managed to find a couple of sticks to tie off the line, but its still bopping around in the mud and then too high in some places.  Email me if you're interested in knowing more, as a charted wreck is no secret.  Water temp 45-46f, total runtime 63 minutes, max depth 64', avg depth ~53ft.

We had lunch at a dive-bar and caught an evening ferry home.  A pretty cool day.  The wreck is definitely worth scootering (again) as a 2nd dive of the day.