Duncan Rock

Duncan Rock is an offshore pinnacle roughly 1 nautical mile northwest of Tatoosh Island and the most exposed dive site at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The run from the Neah Bay Marina is 8 to 9 nautical miles around Cape Flattery and past Tatoosh. Below the surface, the pinnacle is strewn with walls, spires, and canyons over a white broken-shell substrate; diving depths run 80 to 95 feet, and canyons on the west side exceed 100 feet.

Duncan Rock is named on NOAA Nautical Chart 18485. Emerald Diving rates the site "extreme advanced" and calls it among the best places on the coast to encounter adult yelloweye rockfish, which are a protected non-take species. Several rockfish species, including the yelloweye that makes the site notable, are abundant on the structure. The rock surfaces are dense with anemones, gorgonians, and oversized mussels documented by Emerald Diving.

The walls, spires, and canyons of the rock, standing in open current over a broken-shell substrate, put Duncan Rock in the pinnacles biome, and kelp anchored on the shallower crown gives it a kelp forest biome as well. Water off the seaward face opens to the Pacific at the mouth of the strait, a pelagic biome on the exposed side. Scuba and spearfishing are the working activities, though the site opens only in narrow condition windows. Strong current is always present, so dives typically run on mild ebbs under 0.8 knots or on the flood, with the boat and divers tracking the visible V-shaped surface wake. Emerald Diving's conditions to dive are swell of 6 feet or less, calm winds, no fog, and topside visibility good enough to keep the boat tracking; in practice larger swell is common, fog is common in fall, and heavy fishing-boat traffic runs in summer.

Access is boat-only from the Neah Bay Marina ramp, over a mile from the nearest land in fully exposed open Pacific water. The Makah Recreation Pass at $20 per vehicle for the calendar year is required. Duncan Rock sits inside the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, which does not directly regulate fishing, and clearly west of the Bonilla-Tatoosh boundary line, where Marine Area 4 rules are enforced by WDFW: the bottomfish season runs from the second Saturday in March through the third Saturday in October at a 9-fish daily aggregate that includes 7 rockfish (5-canary sublimit), 2 lingcod, and 1 cabezon. Copper, quillback, and vermilion rockfish are release-only in June and July, yelloweye rockfish are release-only year-round, and from June 1 through July 31, bottomfish retention is prohibited seaward of the 20-fathom (120 foot) depth line except on halibut-open days. Wolf eels and giant Pacific octopus are protected non-take statewide, and bang sticks are prohibited.