Netarts

Visited Netarts twice. First dive would have to be one of the best my husband and I have been on. Second visit would be one of the worst dives!!! First dive at Netarts August 18, 2012: Dove to right of boat ramp first, it stayed shallow and current was very fast, so we exited quickly to dive to the left of the boat ramp. This was the BEST decision! Dove to depth of 26 ft. at slack to outgoing tide. Visibility was 10ft. Entered past the dock by the bathrooms. There were TONS of spiky prickleback sea cucumbers, red with spikes, saw a Rockfish, and picked up 8 crabs (though we had to throw back all but 3). It was warm water with a temp on the bottom of 61 degrees. The aquatic life was beautiful! Second dive to Netarts was September 30, 2012 awful. Visibility less than 5 feet. Dove to 32ft depth. It was a good thing we had flashlights, but even then not much to see. This time it was cold, 48 degrees on bottom. I would still recommend this dive.

First time I dove this site vis. Was 20ft. Or better. The best I've seen since then has been about 6-7ft. If you stay near the road, the current pushes you up or down along the rocks. A very easy dive. Usually can pick up a few crab. The fish that I have seen are under sized for harvest. This is the place I go to when I just want to go do a couple of quick dives.

I have dove this site many times, and vis changes from very poor to great as does most of the Oregon coast areas. I last dove on June 11th, vis was about 8-9ft. This is a very good sight-seeing dive but usually not recommended for hunting. Lots of different life here including the monkey face prickle back. I too saw one of these interesting creatures here, and was told by a local diver that there are actually 3 that he had seen. The best way to enter is from the boat ramp. I like to swim up along the road towards the end of high slack and then ride the current back to my entry point. Lots of different life crammed into a small area so it is easy to see many different things.

What a great dive we had! Vis was superb at 15 to 18 feet. There were literally rivers of perch darting around like maniacs around through and between us. I almost got a little dizzy a couple of times as they flashed by. They seemed to be just sort of swirling in a circle and when you shined your light at them they would flow past in a frenzy like a current had them. We cruised out to the point first and enjoyed those big boulders and critters living out there. I saw a very large Red Irish Lord hidden away between some rocks (Either that or another species of Sculpin) We navigated over to the rocks next to the road after 10 minutes or so. Working our way down the rocks I spotted a starfish in a crack but, looking closer, I saw what appeared to be suckers further in. I rousted the starfish out of the crack and sure enough, a fairly good sized Octopus was in there. Jeff took a couple of photos, then I figured I'd try and enlarge the opening a little so we could get a better photo. Working carefully I moved some fairly large rocks so we could get a real good look at him. Encouraged by my success I took off a glove and reached in and allowed him to suck on my fingers a bit. No way was he coming out so after a few more photos we went on. There's an Eel I've seen at Netarts I've never seen anywhere else and I was hoping to luck up on him so that Jeff could take a few pics of it. I've searched the net and I think it is a Monkeyfaced Eel. He's a shy little guy that looks a bit like a dwarf Wolf eel but is darker in coloration and has a very distinctive ridge above his eyes. (Gary Hays swears he looks just like the old Cartoon drawings of "Sea Monkeys" that were on the back pages of superhero comic books in the sixties…) The Eel is VERY anthropomorphic looking, like a little old man all scrunched up. All it needs is a Briar pipe and it could teach political science at Yale.. But… I digress… He wouldn't come out and pose for a picture, so I sent Gary off to find a crab to feed him. While Gary was gone the Monkeyfaced Eel brought a podium and lectern out and began to pontificate at length on the Poetry of Walt Whitman… Finally Gary came back with a small crab. These Eels like their crabs prepared in specific ways so I broke the crab in half and offered it to him. You gotta understand that the Ramblings of a College professor on Whitman will bore anyone to death and the crab was begging to be put out of his misery so no big loss there!) The Eel came out a ways and gobbled it down and hopefully the photo Jeff took will be a good one. We finally cruised on after it became clear that the Eel wasn't going to tip us for our excellent waitering service! To our delight we found ANOTHER Monkeyfaced Eel AND ANOTHER Octopus! There are so many different Species of interesting critters to look at Netarts. Stuff I've never seen anywhere else! I love NETARTS!