Flagpole Point

Access by boat: Flagpole Point is located on the west side of Hood Canal, south of both Mike’s Beach Resort and Triton Head. The point is really just a prominent rocky outcropping that is punctuated with (you guessed it) a lone flagpole. There are several nearby private residences.

The prominent wall highlighting this site runs northeast-southwest and is tricky to pick up with a depth sounder while cruising perpendicular to shore. I find the wall by following a course of 150º from the flag pole and anchoring in about 40-50 feet of water. The depth before the wall decreases slightly before dropping off.

Shore access: Although I have never used the shore access for this dive, paid shore access is available from the north side of the side. Please see Mike's Beach Resort for detail and directions.

Dive profile: This site offers several small and moderate sized walls and extensive boulders fields to explore. The reef starts about 50-75 yards from the rock outcropping on the shore. I descend and follow a 150º bearing from the flagpole until I hit interesting structure. This bearing usually puts me at the south end of the reef. I then follow the structure to the north. If I get to 80 feet and have not hit structure or cloud sponges, I follow the substrate north at a depth of about 80 feet until I do.

The arching main wall generally runs in a northeast-southwest direction. The top of the wall starts at about 60 feet and drops to 90 feet before giving way to a small shelf. The shelf, in turn, gives way to a smaller wall that drops from about 95 to 120 feet. The soft substrate continues to slope away at a moderate pace from the base of the deeper wall.

Above the main wall are boulders that form a mound. It is easy to get disoriented on this mound as depths are deeper in all directions surrounding it. I follow a compass heading of 330 degrees from this mound when heading back to the shore. With some luck, I end up doing my safety stop in the shallows by the rock outcropping exploring a series of small rocky walls.

Like all sites in the Hood Canal area, visibility often varies greatly with depth. A murky fresh water layer typically occupies the top of the water column. The top 10-30 feet of salt water is occasionally laced with plankton, causing visibility to be downright awful (5 feet or less). By the time I reach a depth of 50 feet, the visibility usually improves markedly. A typical scenario in summer is five feet of visibility to about 40 feet, and 40 feet of visibility at 100 feet. All the structure at this site is covered in typical Hood Canal silt. Keeping off the bottom is paramount to maintaining good visibility.

My preferred gas mix: EAN 31

Current observations: Most of Hood Canal south of Seabeck is not dramatically affected by tidal current. I normally dive this area when tidal exchanges are large and only encounter mild current.
A halocline (freshwater/saltwater barrier) usually exists in the canal. The fresh water layer can move in a different direction from the salt water layer. I have noted times when the fresh water flows north while the salt water underneath flows south during a flooding tide.

Wind-driven surface current can affect this area. The wind can really whip through Hood Canal. I only dive this site with a live boat when the wind is blowing.

Boat Launch:
· Seabeck ramp (east side of Hood Canal). Approximately 11 miles from the dive site. This boat ramp requires a Washington
    Department of Fish and Wildlife sticker. This exposed boat launch offers no docks and only a very shallow ramp.

Facilities: None

Hazards:
· Depth: The interesting part of this dive begins at about 60 feet and runs down to the limits of advanced recreational scuba
    diving.
· Free ascent: A free ascent from depths of over 60 feet is a possibility if no-deco time or air supply runs low before reaching the
    shallows.
· Exposure: This site is exposed to wind and weather and susceptible to rapidly deteriorating surface conditions.

Marine Life: The marine life at this site is simply wonderful. This is one of only a few sites in Washington where divers can observe cloud sponges within recreational diving depths. The cloud sponges are relatively small (usually 3’ diameter or less) and not in the best of health as indicated by the dark brown patches and decay on many of the sponges. Numerous crabs, squat lobsters, and small fish take refuge in these sponges and make for marvelous photo opportunities. The cloud sponges reside near the main wall at depths greater than 80 feet.

The rocky structure that makes up this site provides excellent habitat for both giant Pacific octopus and wolfeels. I have had some fantastic encounters with octopus at this site, including one encounter where a large male lifted all its arms around its mantle simultaneously, exposing an army of white suckers. How did I know it was a male? It was mating with a female as it put on this unique display.

This is the only sites where I regularly find spotfin sculpins. These mid-sized sculpins boast a tall and wispy first dorsal ray and a black spot on the dorsal fin. I find spotfin sculpins on the deeper part of this reef.

Rockfish abound here, including very large vermilion rockfish and the occasional lone black and yellowtail rockfish. Puget Sound, quillback, and copper rockfish, lingcod of various sizes, kelp greenling, blackeye gobies, and painted greenling are all common.

Orange burrowing sea cucumbers, white sea cucumbers, yellow bryozoans, and a number of colorful anemones all add brilliant color to the reef. Several large boulders are encrusted with thousands of creamy-yellow zoanthids. Small fields of white sea whips reside in deeper water beyond the base of the reef. Legions of red gilled aeolids invade the surrounding soft substrate during certain times of the year.