I wanted to try another spot around the Chain Islets, but the day I tried (July 5, 2009) wasn't a good day for current. I didn't have time to wait for slack, which was still a few hours away, so I hunted around for a spot that seemed sheltered from the current. Most of the channels between the reefs had an obvious flow of current swirling through them. I ended up at the South end of the island group which didn't look that bad, even though it was facing right into the flooding current. I anchored on the sheltered side of my chosen islet and swam around to the exposed side, where the chart showed a drop to over 30 feet. That doesn't sound all that deep, but most of the Chain Islets are even shallower than that. The shallows had a thick bed of bull kelp with stalked kelp underneath. A school of tube snouts swam through the kelp. The stems of the stalked kelp were covered with brooding anemones. Visibility was pretty bad (10-15 feet) and the current was strong, but not too strong to swim against. I swam against the flow down the steep reef and it bottomed out at about 30 feet deep. The rock was surprisingly silty. With the current and exposed location, I expected more clean-swept colour. There wasn't much marine life either. I didn't see any fish on the slope. At the bottom of the reef there was an area of pebbles, boulders and sandy patches stretching out into the Strait. There was a bit more life here. I saw some rockfish (copper/quillback), a kelp greenling, orange burrowing cucumbers and some patches of urchins. I swam around this area for a bit, but with the current and bad visibility I didn't want to get lost so I swam back up the slope to the kelp near shore. There were large areas covered with clouds of tiny shrimp. I could see the usual branching coralline algae and surfgrass in the shallows behind the blades of kelp. Even with better visibility, I don't think people would bother diving here much, even if it was easily accessible from shore. With so many other spots waiting in the area, I don't think I'll be back either.
