Something's always been nagging at me about this site. I know that a large, boulder-covered sewer pipe is supposed to stretch out for about a kilometer into the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Clover Point, but in the many dives I've done here, I've never been able to find it. I always swim along the rocky slope with the sand on my left out around the point and on my left there's just sand and a few small reefs. Then I wondered (and I should have wondered this long before) if the rocky slope I've always been diving is in fact the sewer pipe reef. This would mean that instead of swimming around the point as I'd always assumed I'd been doing, I was actually swimming out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I always figured that if I ran low on air, I could just surface up the slope and I'd still be close to shore. If this was actually the sewer pipe reef, I'd be a good distance from shore and probably in a unwelcome current.
There had been a few days in a row with not much wind and most of the precipitation was being held up as snow so I figured the visibility might not be too bad. I strapped on a compass and came here (Dec. 23, 2008) to test my "pretty sure" theory. Visibility was about 15-20 feet in the shallows and I swam out nearer to the point and descended to some very natural-looking reefs. This area was nothing like the slope I usually see when I dive here (a pile of boulders almost like Ogden Point). At the bottom of these reefs there was a small flat area and then the pile of boulders I was used to popped up and I followed it out. Sure enough, according to my compass, it was leading out into the Strait. I followed it for awhile and then swam up over the "hump" to the other side and followed it back to shore. I recognised several boulder landmarks that I've seen many times before thinking I was swimming around the point. The visibility was a bit less near the bottom (10-15 feet), but I could see the familiar sea pens in the sand. So I guess the point of all this is that If you enter at the boat ramp and follow the slope out towards the point keep in mind that you will end up out in the Strait far from shore so plan to have enough air to make the swim back. And that's the end of the lecture.
