These photos are from June 24, 2023. Visibility in the shallows was only about 6'.
At 35' deep, the visibility opened up to a nice 50' or so. Because of the yellow-green layer above, it was a bit darker than it could have been. I swam out along the left (West) side of the reef.
There were lots of giant nudibranchs. For some reason, most of them were swimming in mid-water.
At the tip of the reef I continued swimming out across the flat, sand/pebble bottom into the channel towards Mistaken Island. Years ago, I saw some boot sponges on some small rocky reefs. Today, I saw the rocky reefs, but the boot sponges were gone. There were still lots of crimson anemones and swimming scallops out here. My maximum depth was just over 80' deep.
During my swim back towards the main rocky reef, I saw a ratfish.
During the dive I saw a couple of octopus in their dens, but then I saw one out in the open. It stretched out its arms and pulled itself onto my camera. It rode around on it for a bit before letting go and crawling away.
I swam back to shore along the West side of the reef (the same way I came).
