Lake clementine4/3/2023 ![]() ![]() The diving in the canal can be very good and, in some places, benign in terms of currents. The so-called canal is actually a natural body of water, an inland extension of the Pacific Ocean, 70 miles long, and two miles wide. If you drive to the Olympic Peninsula from Seattle, taking the Bainbridge ferry across Puget Sound, you will be following the Hood Canal for part of the drive. We will mention a few of them and offer some guidance on where to find help in exploring others. The sites are abundant and information about them could easily fill an entire guidebook. Visibility: Hood Canal, 25-30 feet Lake Crescent, to 150 feet Salt Creek, 15-50 feet (varies with tide)Ĭoncerns: Tidal currents, surge, rocky coasts, drifting logsĭiving opportunities here include some of the lakes in the interior portions, and in the waters that border non-park lands along the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Hood Canal. One of these was the America, which sank in 1875 after colliding with another ship, taking almost all of her 277 passengers to the bottom.Īccess: Boat for ocean dives shore for Hood Canal and shore or boat for Salt Creek and Lake Crescent Within the boundaries of this area there may be more than 150 historical shipwrecks. The sanctuary extends from Neah Bay in the north to Copalis Beach in the south, encompassing an area about twice the size of Yosemite National Park. This area, rich in marine life and graveyard to many historical shipwrecks, is now designated as part of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. If that doesn't get your attention, check your pulse. Bill Dietrich, a science reporter for the Seattle Times, reports that there are more varieties of kelp, larger colonies of sea birds, and more marine mammals than in any other area in the continental United States. The waters in this area abound in marine life. These are so remote that very little of the underwater terrain has been explored. Most of these are National Wildlife refuges, off-limits to visitors, but the diving around them should be nothing short of spectacular. Many islands, rocks, and islets lie off of the coastal section of the park. The park has two components-a narrow strip of ocean shoreline running 57 miles along the Pacific Coast from South Beach to Shi-Shi Beach and a much larger area that takes in the vast wilderness of the Olympic Mountains and the dense forest aprons that surround them. This is a place of rugged extremes-a wilderness punctured by the sheer peaks of the Olympic Mountains, graced by old growth forests, and surrounded on three sides by water. The Olympic Peninsula of northern Washington state juts out like a thumb between the roiling Pacific Ocean and navigable Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca curving around the peninsula’s northern end. ![]()
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