I'm surprised that this place doesn't have an official name on the marine chart. It's the Western point of Discovery Island and it sticks out into current-swept Plumper Passage. This site is mentioned in the book: "Diver's Guide, Vancouver Island South". It mentions "shallow caves and overhangs covered with plumose anemones" around 100-120 feet deep. The chart promises up to 5 knots of current in Plumper Passage so I picked a day with a reasonable exchange (Sept. 26, 2009) and took my boat out from the Cattle Point launch. There are some small exposed rocks just offshore from Discovery Island at the point. I anchored in the shallows on the protected side and swam out into Plumper Passage. The chart shows a shallow reef stretching out for about 100 meters before the bottom gets deeper, eventually reaching the passage's maximum depth (about 150 feet) off this point. At this time of year the reef is marked by a bull kelp bed, so I could swim out on the surface and descend on the far side of the kelp. 100 meters doesn't seem far, but with so much current in the area, I didn't take it lightly. As I swam out, the current became stronger and stronger. Eventually, near the far side of the kelp bed, I was swimming as hard as I could and I wasn't making any progress. I descended down to the rocky reef 30 feet below me and, thanks to hydrodynamics, the flow was much weaker here. Visibility was about 30 feet. The bottom was a maze of rocky reefs topped with kelp and clusters of urchins. I saw a crimson anemone, the back of a fleeing cabezon and several copper rockfish in the kelp. I reached a flat sandy area that seemed to disappear in the distance. As I swam farther, I could see that it suddenly dropped down in a steep current-sculpted slope. I was diving about 45 minutes before the Baynes Channel slack and the current seemed to have slowed to a reasonable rate so I followed it down. Eventually at about 50-60 feet deep, I saw a rolling rocky reef off to my right. I followed it down to 107 feet and it seemed to flatten out just below me at about 110-120 feet deep. This reef wasn't as life- covered as nearby Strongtide Island, but there was still a decent amount of colour. There were clusters of plumose anemones, cup corals, branching hydrocoral, various tunicates, etc...There weren't swarms of fish, but I saw several quillback and copper rockfish, kelp greenlings and another cabezon. A Puget Sound king crab was hiding between some boulders. There were quite a few crimson anemones and many of them had colourful candy-stripe shrimp around them. The threat of current and the distance from shore prevented me from spending much time here. I didn't see the plumose-covered overhangs, but this is a large area and I only saw a bit of it. The current was more reasonable during the swim back. I had to surface a few times in the kelp to make sure I was headed in the right direction. Unlike many current-swept dives in this area (where the invertebrate life is disappointing), I think I'll come back here. -On a good tidal-exchange day of course.
