I had just finished a dive at Discovery Island (Sept. 26, 2009) and it was a good-current day so I went straight to the Chain Islets for another dive. This time I picked the North-East tip of the island group. This side faces Plumper Passage, which can get up to 5 knots of current. I anchored in knee-deep water near a tiny islet and swam out into the kelp. The chart shows a reef stretching North and going down to at least 60 feet deep on the Plumper Pass side. Under the kelp, it was dark for such a sunny day. Shafts of sunlight flickered down in places and the bottom was covered with urchins. I followed a rocky channel out to the other side of the kelp bed and swam North along the reef. Visibility was about 30 feet. The reef went down to about 60-70 feet deep. The base of the reef was mostly small rocks with some boulders. There was a noticeable current running (it was just after slack), but it was flowing South which was fine because I could swim against it for the first half of the dive and then let it carry me back to my boat. I expected to see some plumose anemones, but there was even more invertebrate life here than I expected. There were lots of plumose anemones, cup corals, hydrocorals, some yellow sulphur sponge, giant barnacles and zoanthids. There were a few patches of reef covered with golden, feathery hydroids. The usual quillback/copper rockfish and several kelp greenlings were hanging around. The kelp greenlings seemed to be mating. Some of the males had darker-coloured heads. Eventually I drifted back along the reef with the current and back up into the kelp forest. There were plenty of seals hanging around on the surface, but I didn't see any underwater. I think that, so far, this is the best dive I've had in the Chain Islets. It's a bit deeper than most of the area and probably gets the most current too.
