San Juan Islands diving

[ally507]

I visited the San Juan Islands last summer. Wow what a beautiful place to dive and visit. The diving was terrific, if you are used to diving cold water like most of us are living here in Wisconsin. I would say that the water temp was between 55 and 60 degrees in the middle of June with vis at about 30-40 ft. We saw lingcod, wolf eels, white anemonies all over the place, 10-12 armed sea stars, sea cucumbers, and lots of Rockfish. The only thing we didn't see was the octopus, but we could have just swam past them because of their camoflage. The diving was wonderful!! We went diving with island divers at Friday Harbor. They were great to dive with and really took care of you. The trip to and from Friday harbor on the ferry was very interesting and the island was great. I would reccommend taking a car around the island instead of using your money to buy a whale watching tour. We were just driving around the western side of the island and looked over and saw a pod of orcas surfacing. Sure we weren't as close to them as the boat would have been, but we were close enough, and didn't have to spend between 50-75 to go out on the boat. I would also reccommend the the San Juan Island Brewery to eat as they had the best fish and chips ever. The whale museam on the island is also a great place to learn more about orcas. Overall a great place to visit and dive from!!