Since the Cornelius Rd. public right-of-way is probably the easiest access of any of the Sooke Basin/Harbour dive sites, I came back here for a dive on March 11, 2023. I usually only dive this area on slack on low current-exchange days. Today, there was a pretty big tidal swing and I wanted to see if the area was still diveable during the Sooke Tide Table slack.
Like before, I swam out to the left. Visibility was only 8-10', but since visibility is never great in the area, I wasn't disappointed. There was a noticeable current as I swam out in the shallows. I was diving at the end of the ebb about 1/2-hour before low tide, but the current was already flooding.
I reached the rocky reef that drops down from shore to the left of the entry-point. Since it was low tide, my maximum depth was 35' at the base of the reef. The earlier current I felt must have been the result of a back-eddy, since at the tip of this reef, there was a strong current flowing in an ebbing direction. Since this was the direction I was swimming, it swept me along and was almost too strong to swim against. After rounding the reef, I hid from the current on its far side. During my swim back, the current had almost completely stopped so I guess using the Sooke tide table for slack is reasonably accurate. It seemed like the current stopped about 15 minutes after the published low tide. One thing I thought was strange was that I didn't see any fish at all except for a single kelp greenling. I didn't even see any of the usual small fish like sculpins or gobies. Maybe it's a seasonal thing.
