My first dive at Possession Point

It was a Saturday, late morning, I and several others decided to dive the old ferry at Possession Point on the South tip of Whidbey Island. We loaded up our boats and made the short trip from Mukilteo.

I was a bit concerned; the current was swift, and the tide was moving. There was no where to tie up the boats; so we made the dive a live boat dive. My dive partner was my ex-wife, Kari. I had not dived this site in the past and was concerned because of the current. I was more concerned because this was Kari’s first boat dive, in deep water and strong current.

The plan was made to enter the water and swim to the buoy as fast we could and then grab the buoy’s anchor line; we would then follow the anchor line down to the bottom. My fears were quickly put to rest. We grabbed the line, dropped about ten feet and the current just disappeared! After that, the dive was simply a pleasure.
We dropped to the bottom...80 feet. We explored the exterior wreck for a short time, it was in poor condition. Not being wreck certified, we did not enter the interior of the wreck. On the wreck we saw a monster; a Lingcod fish, it had to have been 5’ long.., it was HUGE!

While at the wreck, just to the east I noticed the sea floor disappeared. We swam to the edge. The sea floor dropped out of sight. I had heard there was a drop off there and decided to explore it a little. We swam over the edge, descending to about 110 feet.

We noticed many cave-like holes going from just a couple of feet deep, to so deep you could not see the back of the cave with a light. The caves were anywhere from 15 inches in diameter to about 3 feet. As I shined my dive light into these holes, I could see that they were lined with what seemed to be thousands of shrimp. I tried to catch a couple in my hand but they were just too quick for me.

When we entered the water, the sun was shining; it was about 9:00 in the morning. On the bottom, at the wreck, I was amazed at the clarity of the water; we could easily see 50 feet. After dropping over the edge, it was cool the way the sun light penetrated the water. It was like one of those paintings, or a picture, with the sun rays piercing the clouds. I swam away from the wall, my body floating over the abyss. It was a good thing I had a good understanding of buoyancy control, I later learned the bottom was some 900 feet down! I had swum about 20 feet away from the wall and turned to look back. I wanted to get a better view of the wall with the sun light hitting the wall.

When I turned, I saw one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen while diving. The wall glittered like jewels in the night sky. The wall was littered with years of fishing tackle and lures. When the sun light struck lures, the wall simply sparkled. It was truly a beautiful sight.

GPS Coordinates: To Buoy (N. 47 53.80 W. 122 23.14); To Wreck (N. 47 53.82 W. 122 23.56).