Cudlip Point is a steep point on Bentinck Island that sticks out into the currents of Race Passage and drops down underwater to around 150' deep. I've wanted to dive here for awhile, but its exposed location meant I'd have to pick a calm day (that corresponded with a long slack current) to anchor my boat near the rocks. Everything looked good on March 2, 2015, so I launched my Zodiac at the Pedder Bay marina and came out for a dive. Once a leper colony, Bentinck Island is now Department of National Defence property and is used for demolitions training. You're not allowed to go ashore here. There were no red flags up on the poles (the red flags mean the demolitions range is active) so I anchored in a small bay next to the point and swam strait out. Visibility was 20-30' and the bottom sloped down in small walls, ledges and sandy areas with boulders. I could tell right away that this area gets some fast current. The bottom was clean-swept, with none of the silt that you see in other areas. There were hydrocorals, lots of urchins, a few fish-eating anemones and cup corals. I lost count of the number of adult Puget Sound king crabs, but I must have seen 5 or 6. As I went deeper, there were clumps of giant barnacles, orange hydroids, and an octopus out in the open. I was expecting lots of plumose anemones, but there were hardly any. Instead the bottom was dotted with crimson anemones. There weren't swarms of fish, but there were a few copper/quillback rockfish and kelp greenlings. I saw a cabezon guarding eggs. I made it down to 110' deep here and could have kept going deeper, but there was that current to think about so I swam back nearer to shore. I saw some small solitary hydroids under a field of stalked kelp. Nudibranchs were eating some of them. I think this was a great dive, but it probably won't get many visits from divers with boats since Race Rocks is close by.
