Since it was a good day for current (April 17, 2009), I was planning on seeing how far out I could get on the sewer pipe reef. I climbed in the water close to the point and swam down to the reef. I was a bit disoriented (like half the time I dive here). I think all of the artificial boulder piles, natural reefs, various sewer pipes, and different piles of concrete bags give this place a somewhat confused layout, especially when the visibility is bad. Today it was pretty good (20-30 feet), but I was still unable to easily find the right part of the boulder pile that leads out into the Strait. I ended up hanging around the base of the reefs about 40 feet deep off the point. I saw a small adult wolfeel in a den (a Clover Point first for me). There also seem to be more and more sea pens out in the sand. Up in the shallows, the kelp is well on it's way to being impassible. On a bright, sunny, calm day like this with little current and good visibility, this can be a great local dive.
Conditions were so good last time, I came back on April 19, 2009. I went in near the tip of the point again. I swam out to the left and met up with the boulder-pile sewer-pipe reef. It was another good current day and visibility was still 20-30 feet so I continued to swim out. The boulders soon disappeared and there was a pile of large (maybe 8 feet long?) bags of cement holding down the pipe instead. I kept following it out and the bags were soon replaced by the pile of boulders again. I eventually made it down to about 80 feet deep. This area had the most fish I've seen anywhere so far in the Victoria area. There was a school of about 100 black rockfish hovering above the reef. I've also never seen so many copper rockfish as I did here. At one point there were at least 50 large adults surrounding me among the boulders. I saw what I thought was a seal swimming towards me from off in the distance. It turned out to be a monster lingcod. As I swam along, I kept seeing it coming towards me from different directions. Eventually I realised that there were several huge lingcod circling me. I could see others laying on the sand near the reef. There were also some pretty large cabezon. If every dive here was like this, Clover Point would probably be close to the top of my list of local spots. Unfortunately, the current and the distance make this area impossible to reach most of the time. In almost 9 years of diving in Victoria, this is the farthest I've made it out on this reef. On my way back, I saw another wolfeel in the same area as the one I saw last time.
