Bell Island

Bell Island in Washington State's northwestern waters, accessible only by boat, provides advanced divers with Puget Sound or Salish Sea diving in the productive, current-influenced waters of the San Juan Islands or nearby archipelago—a site where the combination of island geography, tidal exchange, and the biological productivity of the Pacific Northwest's inner sea create diving conditions that reward the effort of reaching a remote boat-access location with marine life of exceptional quality and density. Island diving in the San Juan archipelago and adjacent waters represents some of the Pacific Northwest's finest and most demanding diving. The advanced designation for Bell Island reflects the conditions that island sites in this region typically present: current exposure from the tidal exchanges that flow around and between islands, depth that may exceed recreational open-water parameters without careful planning, and the boat-access logistics that require self-sufficiency skills beyond those needed at shore-accessible sites. Divers who arrive at Bell Island having done their tidal homework and with appropriate gas supplies for the planned dive profile find conditions that the Pacific Northwest's productive cold water sustains in its most impressive form—a diving experience that the region's reputation is built on. Marine life at Bell Island benefits from the strong tidal exchange that island positions in the Salish Sea channel systems experience. Strong current delivers nutrient-rich water continuously, sustaining the plankton productivity that feeds every level of the food web from the anemones and sponges colonizing the island's underwater rock faces to the rockfish, lingcod, and kelp greenling that inhabit the structural features above them. The island's underwater geography—the rock faces, walls, and boulder fields that characterize the underwater extension of the San Juan Islands' surface topography—provides the vertical structural complexity that supports diverse biological communities. Giant Pacific octopus are present at island sites throughout the San Juan Islands area, drawn by the abundant crab and fish populations that productive current-swept environments sustain. The opportunity for open-water GPO encounters at island sites—animals emerging from dens and actively moving across open terrain rather than sheltering in dock or pier structure—creates encounters of a different character than the more typical den observation that pier and beach sites provide. An octopus moving freely across the bottom in the open water of an island dive site, its entire body visible and its locomotion observable without the distraction of structural interference, is a wildlife observation of exceptional quality. The boat journey to Bell Island adds the maritime dimension to the dive that transforms it from an activity into an experience—crossing Pacific Northwest waters in a dive boat, the San Juan Islands' forested profiles visible in multiple directions, the sound of seals and eagles from the shoreline—creates a Pacific Northwest adventure that shore-accessible sites with their parking lots and changing facilities cannot provide regardless of the marine life they host.