This is a steep, rocky point sticking out from East Sooke Park on the West side of Becher Bay. It would be possible to dive here from shore, but the trail from the parking lot is about 700 meters long so I took my boat (April 23, 2011). The chart shows a steep slope to about 30 feet deep around the tip of the point. It also shows some beached wrecks in a couple of the bays on the North side of the point. I anchored my boat just off the closest beach around the North side of the point. I motored in slowly, looking for wreck remains under the surface. My propeller ended up finding it. It ran into a jagged piece of iron, stopping my engine and bending a propeller blade. After anchoring my boat, I swam out to the wreckage. It was just under the surface and was mostly covered with kelp. I think this part was an engine. I saw what looked like a flywheel. There were also some iron rods sticking up from the sand nearby. After satisfying myself that there wasn't much left to see, I swam out towards the tip of the point. The rocks sloped down to a bed of eelgrass 20 feet deep. There were brooding anemones on the eelgrass. Visibility was 15-20 feet. The rocky slope was almost completely covered with a variety of kelp. From what I could see of the rocks, they looked mostly grey and silty. There were a few fish-eating anemones. I felt a bit of current that seemed to be flowing in different directions as I swam around the point. Up near the surface there was the expected coraline algae and surfgrass. Even up here, the blades of kelp seemed to hang down over the walls like a curtain. There were some cracks and overhanging boulders with colourful encrusting sponges/tunicates/hydroids/etc. I saw almost no fish on this dive except for a small group of perch, a kelp greenling and some longfin sculpins. Around the South side of the point, there was a huge boulder with plumose anemones, etc. on it's undercut sides. One end of the boulder leaned against another rock, creating a small tunnel. It was probably too small to swim through without scraping everything up. This shallow, colourful boulder (10-15 feet deep) was my favorite part of the dive. Just past it, on the South side of the point, the bottom was flat and shallow, full of kelp and coraline algae. I figured I didn't have the air to swim back around the point so I climbed out of the water and took the short trail across the peninsula to the beach where my boat was anchored. The tide was lower and I could see more scraps of iron on the beach from the wreck. I don't know if I'll come back here, but if I do it will be later in the year when there isn't so much kelp covering everything.
