Harper's ferry report

[Matt S.]

I went out to Harper's ferry on Saturday with Penopolypants. What a neat site! It's well worth a trip out there when you get tired of "the office."

All the material that we read online said the site was not current sensitive. Well, I think that is an exaggeration... We dove it during Saturday afternoon's big flood and a south-flowing current was quite noticeable, though manageable. Vis was 20-25 ft. I think it would have been even better if we splashed before the current picked up.

Here are some photos:

http://wrongcrowd.com/gallery/harpers

Thanks to Penelope for being a buddy, and to my pal John who played Shore Buddy/Dive Sherpa.

 

[Penopolypants]

Thanks to you, too for being a buddy, and thanks to John for being a great dive sherpa. That was a luxury I could get used to really fast!

Even though it was overcast, ambient light was pretty good due to the shallow depths, and the wall of plumose anemones was beautiful with the light shining through. There were loads of baby nudibranchs everywhere...I guess spring is here! The pilings were also covered in kelp crab and sea stars, there were some beautifully colored anemones scattered around, and of course the requisite Dungeness crabs were scuttling across the bottom. There were few fish, though - I wonder how most people do fishing off the pier.

The current was surprising, simply because I had always heard that this wasn't a current sensitive site. As Matt pointed out, it was manageable, but we were getting blown sideways every once and a while.

It was a good site to get in a nice, long, leisurely dive - I will definitely go back.