Port Townsend Marine Life Transfer

Washington Scuba Alliance is pleased to let the PNW diving community know about a wonderful opportunity for all who love our Salish Sea and Puget Sound

waters.

We’ve been working closely with the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, the Port of Port Townsend, the Port Townsend Maritime Center and also the fine people at Widener & Associates. We have great support from Octopus Gardens Diving and a host of others from the Port Townsend region.

What is it that is in the works?

We are building a wonderful dive site at the south side of the Point Hudson Marina. For some time now, the old breakwater of Point Hudson has been in need of a major feat of rehabilitation. Last year the north section was rebuilt with new rock and cribbing. It looks great!

This year the same will be done for the main south breakwater. WSA and others saw a way to protect the marine life on the old breakwater. We’re going to transplant as much of the invertebrate life from the 80+ year old structure over to new rock that has now been placed very near the old breakwater.

This is where the help of citizen science divers and other volunteer divers comes in. We will be doing a series of dives In late July and late August of 2023 to remove the organisms from the old over to the new rock. It’s going to make for a fantastic dive site. Our goal is to possibly make this a Marine Protected Area.

It will also make for a wonderful area for marine studies. Port Townsend Marine Science Center is working on moving their facilities to a new building on the main street of the town. In the near future, divers will be able to witness the growth of a new habitat. All built by PNW divers like all of you!

We’ve already seen where the marine life is beginning to move over and populate the expanded new reef structure.

After the transplant diving is done, the goal of all of us is to actually remove as much of the old rock and place it on and around the new material that was set there at the end of last year. It’s not a done deal…we are meeting with contractors now regarding the plan. Demolition of the south breakwater at Point Hudson will start in the middle of September, 2023.

All of the remaining old stone should be able to be stored and used again at local sites that need rebuilding. The goal here is to not just dump the rock, but rather to reuse and recycle it.

What can you divers do? On SUNDAY July 9 th (next month) WSA and others will be holding a demonstration for training on how to carefully remove the life from the old rocks on the breakwater. We will meet at 1100 at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center pier in Fort Worden State park. Please plan to dive as we will practice removing some the marine life from the pilings of the PTMSC pier.

Parking is easy as is the access to the water. The boat ramp adjacent to the to the pier is no longer open to boat operations.

We do plan on having a lunch provided. After wards, we will shift over to the area near the breakwater to show folks what the area looks like.

Now the big plan:

July 27 and 28..maybe Saturday July 29 we start to do a series of dives at the breakwater. Our best minimal current is (hopefully) from 3:30pm and 6pm.

However, it appears we can expect to dive from 11am to 6pm. If you can handle some minimal current, we will be diving starting at 11am-ish.

Then in August, plan to dive on Friday August 25 from about noon to 8pm.

Saturday August 26 will have a good window from mid afternoon with the best window from 5pm to 7pm. Pretty much those days are looking good.

If all goes well, we may have a few days in September before all diving must cease by September 15.