Everett is a small town about 25 miles north of Seattle and is homeport to a flotilla of naval vessels that comprise a strike force which could easily make Everett the envy of many a foreign navy and/or country. The largest vessel is a nuclear powered aircraft carrier named the USS Abraham Lincoln. To see the vessels first hand, I believe you either have to be a 12 year old boy scout on a special assignment, or part of the navy family.

Naval Station Everett which they first started building in WWII isn't the only large facility in Everett, in the 1960's Boeing built a covered area for making planes such as the 747, 767, 777, and the 787. The structure next to Paine Field Airport is the largest building by volume in the world. But these aren't the only big things in the city; Everett also boasts the largest boat marina on the west coast with over 2000 slips. I guess you could say it's just a typical small town were they just happen to do things big. I should also add that from this marina many good dive sites are not far away.

Everett is flanked on the east side by the Snohomish River and the Possession Sound on the west side. Marysville and the Tulalip Indian Reservation are on the north end, and Mukilteo and Lynnwood border the south end. In Forest Park, the oldest Everett park, there is a swimming center where I spent many a day as a Dive Master then as a Scuba Dive Instructor preparing students with the skills that they would need to safely and comfortably enjoy the nearby local waters.

What I like most about Everett is the wide variety of restaurants they have Cajun and Creole food at the Alligator Soul, Italian cuisine at Lombardi's Cocina, and fresh seafood at Anthony's Homeport. The only negative thing about the Everett is trying to find a parking space during the holiday season when the Yacht Club and local restaurants are filled with private office parties, festive families, and cozy couples out for the evening.

As far as the local diving goes, Everett is the gateway to several boat dive destinations. If you have your own boat or sign up with a charter operation you can go over to Gedney (Hat) island where you can either boat dive the artificial reef on the south end of the island, where concrete slabs and rocks have formed a home for many varieties of sea life, or you can dive right in front of the Hat Island Marina and descend down to an upside down barge or a smaller barge down at 150 ft of depth. Dive charters also may lead across the possession sound to dive off the southern end of Whidbey Island such as Possession Point Fingers. It's a wall dive with lots of cracks, crevices, and cavernous areas where a wide range of creatures call home. Be sure and bring a flashlight on this dive and watch your depth, because it's easy to pass a 100ft of depth or more when you're focused on finding giant octopus. You might also like to dive the wreck of the Possession Point Ferry. The Kehloken was a 240 ft long passenger ferry and was sunk as an artificial reef in 1983. Take a two hundred plus foot ferry boat and burn it down to the water line then sink it at 80 ft of depth, shake and stir with currents and salt water, and you have one fantastic artificial reef quickly filled with tons of fish and plumose anemones.

As for shore dives, with the Navy taking up part of the waterfront and the railroad taking up the rest of the shoreline, the nearest dive sites are down the hill in Mukilteo or north towards Marysville at Kayak Point County Park. Mukilteo actually has three dive sites to choose from.

The Mukilteo T dock is the most popular of the three sites. There is a sea wall on the right side of the Silver Cloud Inn and adjacent to the government instillation/ Marine Biological Research Facility. Sand has recently filled in the remodeled stairway so it's an easy walk down to the beach. Stepping in the water you have plenty of room to gear up before descending down a gravel slope that gives way to a steep sloping sand embankment. At 20 ft you may come across a guide rope running parallel to shore. This is where a lot of dive classes complete their skills before touring the local area. Past this rope line you'll find tons of juvenile crabs with only their antennas sticking out of the sand. Down at 130 ft the steep slope smoothes out and 2 ft wide sandy ripples lead a long air consuming path down past 175 ft and beyond. You can go deep here for training purposes or better yet, stay around 35 ft and check out some underwater pilings, a geo-dome, and other manmade artifacts located near the T dock. If you go to your right past the T dock you'll find two consecutive shallow bowls of desolated sand. However, around the perimeter of these areas you'll encounter kelp greenling, lingcod, cabezon, stubby squid, sole, and flounder.

After swimming what seems like ½ mile or so you'll arrive at the Oil Dock. Around the Oil dock in less than 35 ft of water you'll find a plethora of oversized crabs, perhaps even thousands. You have to stay a few feet off the substrate because the fine silt whips up here easily, but you can max out on your crab limit very quickly.

At the Mukilteo State Park also known as Lighthouse Park, located to the left of the ferry terminal and adjacent to the picturesque postage stamp sized lighthouse, you'll come across a variety of diversified dive sites. A short walk from the beachfront restrooms into the water is a clay embankment at 30 ft of depth and a second embankment at 70 ft. Empty holes bored in the clay by former long necked clam residents give refuge to myriads of small invertebrates. This area is a good spot to see lingcods and octopus too.

Near the public boat ramp it's a steep sandy drop off past 150 ft with nothing to see except artifacts discarded or lost overboard from passing boats, but it makes a great location to do decompression stops for technical divers.

At the park especially, you have to plan your dives according to slack tides to avoid strong currents. During salmon season sea lions patrol all these dive site areas in search of a never-ending supply of migrating fat and protein. Certain times of the year you can see gray whales close by and nuclear powered fleets off in the distance.

Kayak Point County Park north of Everett is a nice easy dive good for looking for crabs, or discarded crab nets over by the fishing pier. I once found a wedding ring here, but that was a planned recovery dive.

For more information on this and other northwest dive sites please see my book: The Northwest Dive Guide by Harbour Publishing. Great Dives! ■