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Richmond Beach - Seattle WA


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Richmond Beach is a shore accessible salt water dive site, located at Richmond Beach Park, Seattle, WA. This dive site has an average rating of 2.50 out of 5 from 2 scuba divers. The average visibility is 5-10ft/2-3m.

Richmond Beach will offer a little for everyone: A nice beach park for the kids, a relatively shallow dive for the inexperienced, pieces of ship Utopia for the souvenir hunters, and marine life for the naturalist in us all! It’s a bit of a walk to make it to the shore, so a tank cart would be of help.
Directions: Found just North of Seattle in Richmond Beach, grab your Seattle map and find the North 175th exit. You’ll head West on 175th, then North on Aurora, then West on 185th which becomes Richmond Beach road, and then follow the signs to Richmond Beach Park (left on 20th Ave NW). You’ll get a better idea just looking at your map!
This is a great place to snorkel. There is a huge reef and it is in like 10 feet of water. There are a lot of perch and flounder, and every once in a while you will spot a huge cabezon blending in with the reef. Remember not to go out too far as there is just a huge drop off and there is nothing to see. The down-side to this dive is that it is a long walk to the beach, and sometimes it gets really murky. There are bath rooms near the beach just in case.
I dive this spot occasionally because it is somewhat sheltered from a north wind. If I am determined to get into the water, it is accessible when others aren’t. The scattered debris is supposedly from the wooden steamship "Utopia" which was grounded and then burned in order to salvage the metal from it. There are some remnants of an effort to start an artificial reef. I have seen lingcod, cabezon, crab, and the normal assortment of sea stars and nudibranchs. Since the Edmonds Oil Dock is nearby, it is a much preferable dive.
I have dived Richmond beach many times. There is some debris on the bottom, otherwise not too much to see. There is a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks [i.e., carry your tanks several hundred feet up and over the bridge. We found some big concrete anchors and an old steel propeller {14’ across?] at 60 feet deep that were used as temporary anchors. Look carefully and you will find they are attached to each other by big steel chains. These were straight out from the bathhouse. The biggest hazard is trains, at least one child has been killed on the tracks.


http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/USA_West/Washington/Richmond_Beach/index.htm

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Comments
GregScubaholic - 12/12/2008 10:53 PM
Hauling gear at Richmond Beach is a challenge. Carry your gear from the parking lot down a hill, up and over a bridge built over a couple sets of RR tracks, down a steep concrete path to the picnic shelter. Gear up, walk down a steep bank, cross 100-200yds of ankle busting rock, surface swim out to deeper water. There is a lot of miscellanious sea life near small deposits of mostly manmade junk. Reverse the process when you’re done. Remember it’s all uphill from the picnic shelter, pace yourself. On the brightside, Emerald Sea Dive Club does a few dives there every year. We collect a few critters for the beach rangers to talk about for benefit of the general public. The critters are carefully released when we are done.