Hammond Boat Basin South Jetty

Hammond Boat Basin South Jetty sits at the south side of the Columbia River mouth, tucked inside the small-craft harbor now run by the City of Warrenton in Clatsop County. Access starts on Iredale Street north of downtown Hammond; just past 5th Avenue a set of dirt tracks turns east and drops divers onto the beach. From there the dive follows the jetty riprap along the boat basin's south side. No published source gives a depth at the toe of the structure. Water clarity here can fall very low.

Hammond is now part of the City of Warrenton, and the boat basin is one of the city's marina complexes today. The jetty is a working piece of small-craft infrastructure rather than a dive site built out for divers, and what gets written about it comes from local dive-community notes rather than published guidebooks.

The riprap of the jetty forms a rocky reef biome, boulder and crevice structure set against the strong tidal exchange of the Columbia River mouth. The ocean-facing side is a surf zone biome as well, driven by strong tidal exchange rather than open-ocean wave action. Scuba divers use the site for spearfishing and crabbing.

Parking is limited. There is no developed dive lot or restroom at the jetty itself, and a cart is useful for hauling gear across the sand. Roaring tidal current on the Columbia mouth makes the site intermediate at best, and straying too far north or east of the jetty puts divers in the shipping lanes with heavy ship wakes. Ocean spearfishing is legal here under standard Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife rules, and Oregon's 2026 Ocean Endorsement is required for jetty spearfishing.