Hobsonville Point

Hobsonville Point is a rocky spur jutting into the northern end of Tillamook Bay on the east shore, about a mile across Miami Cove from Garibaldi. The site sits south of Garibaldi city center and roughly 7.5 miles north of Tillamook. Entry is a shore wade in easy conditions. Underwater the point carries the ruins of a sawmill dock erected out of the water and put into operation in the fall of 1883; the timbers and structural debris of that dock are still on the bottom and are the primary hazard divers work around.

The town of Hobsonville was founded on lumber and salmon fishing in 1883 and has since become a ghost community on the east shore of Tillamook Bay. The same headland was also the site of a Native settlement documented by the Oregon Encyclopedia as the Hobsonville Indian Community, on Miami Cove southeast of Garibaldi. Today, the submerged remains of the sawmill dock are what a shore diver finds here.

The rock spur and the collapsed dock timbers give Hobsonville Point a rocky reef biome, a bay-side setting with hard structure but no kelp, no open-ocean surf, and no documented eelgrass. Scuba divers use the site as a quiet, out-of-the-way shore dive rather than a spearfishing spot. Documented life on the point runs to an abundance of crabs, clams, and hermit crabs, with fewer large fish species.

Parking is at unmarked roadside pullouts near the point; the Zentacle listing calls it plentiful, but there are no developed facilities and no restrooms. Visibility runs on the order of 8 feet in favorable conditions. Protrusions from the submerged dock are present throughout the dive area and are the primary navigation hazard. Spearfishing is legal in Oregon estuary water under standard Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife rules, though it is not the site profile; a shellfish license is required for crab or clam take.