dragonslane4

In the small bay, the water looked like yellow-brown mud from a stream that was flowing into the bay. In this layer, visibility was only about 1 foot. Fortunately, this layer was only 1 foot deep and beneath it, it cleared up nicely. Even in the shallow bay, visibility was maybe 30'.

As I left the bay, the visibility was even better, probably 50'. The heavily-overcast and rainy weather on the surface really cut down on the light levels underwater though.

I swam out farther and was surprised by the strong current flowing straight down the slope. There were bits of seaweed and even areas of sand being dragged down along the bottom. I was diving on the Gabriola Passage slack on a very low exchange day so it was strange to feel current this strong. It wasn't strong enough to drag me away though so I continued down to 80' deep, where there were a couple of tall boulders with lots of crimson anemones on them. This has always been my favorite area of this dive site.

I left the big boulders with the crimson anemones and continued to swim down along the slope of smaller boulders. My maximum depth here was a bit over 100' deep, where the boulders ended in sand. I used to see a few boot sponges in this area, but today they seemed to be gone. I also didn't see as many rockfish as I saw here years ago, but it might be a seasonal, winter thing. Compared to the crimson anemone boulder area, the rest of this slope seems relatively barren. There were a few small copper, quillback and Puget Sound rockfish, lingcod and a juvenile yelloweye rockfish.

The last few times I dove here, I always told myself to try swimming out to the left instead to see what's in that direction. Then I always forget and dive out to the right to the areas I usually visit. Next time for sure I'll try and remember to explore out to the left, but it probably won't be for awhile since the long-ish trail and the steep climb down the small cliff at the end, make for tricky access compared to many other Gabriola Island sites.