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[gcbryan]

I'll make a contribution (as Howard says, unfortunately it's hard to pick just one).

Deception Pass is a narrow body of water separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island in Washington State. The turbulent waters are spanned by Deception Pass bridge. This is also a state park. The bridge is high above the water and for the most part there are sheer rock cliffs from the bridge down to the water. There is a small beach that you can get to and there is where this dive begins if done by shore. Charter boats generally don't dive here but after the following dive detailed below I did do the dive again by small boat the next year (went much smoother).

This is a dive that you can only do several times a year (late winter). We timed it for slack and planned to drift with the current for 20 minutes and would look at the rock structure under the bridge at slack (we kept the max depth to 110 fsw). Most of the time is spent making sure you stay with your buddy and avoiding large rocks popping up as you go drifting by. The life on the rocks is amazing and for the most part large. Visability is generally not great maybe 10 feet or so. I picked the right (experienced) buddy and even though it took most of my concentration to deal with conditions it was a great dive. We stuck to our gas plan but were surprised when the currents didn't reverse. We got shallower but went with the flow a little longer than planned since the alternatives weren't good. Finally we had to ascend. When we come up we were just pass the bridge on the other side and there was a wind storm passing through so now we had 4-5 foot white caps and the waters under the pass looked like we were in a storm out at sea.

We couldn't get far from the shore/rocky cliffs because the water mid-channel was moving even faster (in the wrong direction). Trying to stay close to shore was only getting us bashed agains rocks cropping up out of the water. It didn't appear that we could swim agains the current and at the time going with the flow didn't look too good either as there were rock walls everywhere and very erratic water flows and back eddys.

We stayed together and stayed calm although that took some focus. We decided to go back under and hug the bottom to see if we could swim back to the exit. There was a kid way up above us on the bridge that couldn't believe that anyone could be out in such conditions and when we went back under he thought that we were drowning. Someone called 911 and the coast guard, medics, etc. were waiting for us when we finally got back to the beach. We were underwater swimming part of the way and finally we had to do the rest on the surface. We got out and wondered if one of the other divers didn't fare so well since we saw all of the emergency people around until we realized that they had been called for us.

Lessons learned include not diving Deception Pass on a windy day, slack there is at least 30 minutes later than predicted, I bought a larger tank and a pony bottle after that dive even though we did have a gas plan and stuck with it. I had the right dive buddy and she had the right one as well. I had to tow her for a few minutes when she got a leg cramp and I was glad to have her since she was able to remain calm and to be a great dive buddy.

I've since done this from a small live boat and on a day where the water looked as smooth as a lake but where predictions were no different than the first time I dove here.

I don't generally like to plan dives that are quite this exciting but we did do it as a shore dive because of the challenge (and we didn't have access to a boat). I learned that when you go through a tough dive with a buddy that is the only time when you truely know how they will react. It turned out well this time. We had all trained for this dive by progressively doing more difficult dives and that paid off in this case.

I've made out and out mistakes with regards to turning valves only half way on or getting into more deco or going deeper than planned but none have been as dramatic (from my point of view) as the Deception Pass dive even though there weren't a lot of mistakes made, much was learned.

As an aside a little Karma was involved as well. Had it not been such a dramatic day I would have thought nothing of it but on the way out a husband/wife team were getting in first. He swam out into the channel and she fell down in shallow water due to all the gear she had on. He didn't help her and probably didn't even see her. She could have gotten up by herself but I gave her a hand as anyone would. Here's the Karma part...as we were struggling to get in those last few feet at the end of the dive when all hell had cut loose weather wise and when all those people were on the beach, the only one to actually come a few feet into the water to help my buddy out a little was the lady that I had helped up at the beginning on the dive. Good Karma.