Tangled Up in Blue

Islander Shares Her Appetite for the Salish Sea and Beyond

Jacques Cousteau is often called the Father of Scuba Diving. In relative (closer to Bainbridge) terms, master diver and instructor Pam Auxier boasts 35 years experience under her weight belt in addition to 6,050-plus dives worldwide, solidly qualifying her as our very own, home-town Mother of Scuba Diving.

Auxier is president and owner of Exotic Aquatics Scuba Diving and Kayaking, now celebrating 32 years in business on the island.

Her inspiration for diving began at age 10, when a family friend took her “diving” on a double-hose regulator in a 4-footdeep swimming pool. “Mike Nelson of ‘Sea Hunt’ was my hero,” she said, referring to the 1960s underwater adventure TV series.

When Auxier was starting a nursing career in 1986, owning a dive shop was just a twinkle in her eye. When she—the only female among 32 male counterparts—mentioned her dive-shop dreams at a Professional Association of Diving Instructors certification course, she got a big laugh. “Since it was a predominately male sport back then, suits and equipment didn’t even exist that fit women properly,” she said. “I now have a large female clientele.”

Auxier made her dream come true after moving to Bainbridge, launching the shop in 1991.

“I wanted to teach at home,” she said, “and take people to exotic places, locally and abroad. That’s been my model for 32 years.”

Her business now employs six dive masters plus two master instructors with roughly 10,000 dives between them. Featured international dives include the Galapagos Islands; Okinawa, Japan; Port Hardy at the tip of Vancouver Island; and an 1867 shipwreck in the British Virgin Islands. Local favorites are the China Wall, with sheer rock faces and innumerable fissures, leading 100 feet to a sandy floor; Shangri-La, a true heaven on underwater earth; Waterman’s Wall, a 140-foot sheer wall with huge cracks and crevices revealing all the marine life the Pacific Northwest has to offer; and Blake Island, with, among other attractions, a vibrant artificial reef system, created by chunks of the old Interstate 90 floating bridge dumped there in the 1990s.

No matter one’s thirst for adventure, skill, master-level experience or lack thereof, Exotic Aquatics offers a chance to pursue under- or above-water adventure. For seasoned enthusiasts, there are self-guided scuba diving or kayak excursions, while guided tours

BY KERRIE HOUSTON REIGHTLEY

PHOTOS BY J.C. FIGUEROA

around Bainbridge, the Seattle area and Kitsap peninsula are offered for all levels, as well as specialized trips around the world. In addition to tours and instruction, Exotic Aquatics also sells and rents kayak and scuba diving equipment.

Some of Exotic Aquatic’s most popular kayaking excursions include romantic full moon paddles to watch sunsets or moonrises above the Seattle skyline; or a Blakely Rock tour—set against the backdrop of Mount Rainier to the south, Mount Baker to the north, the Cascades to the east, and the Olympics to the west—to picnic, explore tidepools and bask in the Salish Sea’s natural beauty while hoping to catch a glimpse of killer whales, bald eagles, harbor porpoises and seals and blue herons.

For local divers, Auxier said that the crown jewel is our resident, famed giant Pacific octopus near Rockaway Beach. “His mantel [head] reaches to my waistline. His arms are 12 to 14 feet [long], and his suction cups are the size of sandwich plates,” she said. Smaller underwater gems include starfish, sandalwood nudibranchs, giant barnacles, mosshead war bonnets, wolf eels, cuttlefish, moon snails and spiny lumpsuckers.

Auxier’s ease in the sea and among its creatures—both great and small—was perhaps best illustrated when asked her opinion on diving with sharks. She pulled out a screenshot of her in the Galapagos, frolicking among 300 hammerheads. She added, “The next day, we saw whale sharks the size of school busses.” Closer to home, in Blakely Harbor, Auxier has encountered a rarely seen, deep-water, 15-foot sixgill shark.

Today, she’s still chasing her dreams. In the ‘90s, she dived in Palau, an archipelago in the western Pacific. “I vowed to return someday,” she said. That someday is October 2023—this time, with 16 scuba-diving patrons in tow.

“Being under water is mesmerizing,” Auxier said. Describing Keystone off Whidbey Island, she mused, “It’s like diving through a huge feather pillow, with all its white, feathery plumose anemones everywhere. Beauty surrounds you and washes away all your worries.”