I usually swim out to the right at Cranford Park where some rocky reefs go down to about 50-60' deep. I've never been out to the left since the chart shows a flatter, shallower bottom there. I recently noticed a strange shallow reef popping up right next to shore out around the left-hand point of the Cranford Park bay. It's not shown on most charts, but on one more-detailed chart it seems like there might be a narrow canyon between this reef and the shore. This possible canyon seemed too shallow to be very interesting with regards to marine life, but the topography seemed so strange I wanted to dive there and see what it was.
I started snorkeling out and almost immediately, I saw a squid swimming below me. They're not exactly rare, but this is the first one I've seen in almost 20 years of diving.
As I neared the point I was swimming for, I saw that the bottom near shore was covered with broken rock/rubble. At first I assumed it was dumped there from the properties on shore, but maybe it was just broken up from the cliffs by waves.
At the point where the chart showed the canyon, there was a rocky slope going down to about 35' deep. I didn't see anything like what the chart showed. At the bottom of this slope there were some areas with lots of urchins. I didn't see any fish (other than small sculpins, etc.) except for a small quillback rockfish. Visibility was around 10-15'.
I swam out a bit from the base of the slope. The bottom here (35-40' deep) was mostly sand, but there were a few rocky reefs and boulders with some plumose anemones.
This spot was ok. There was no dramatic canyon after all, but there were some areas with enough marine life to make it worth doing. I don't think it was good enough to dive more than once though (especially considering the swim).
