drummondbay2

I haven't been diving here for several years. I wanted to refresh my memory of this place and explore a bit more than I did years ago. As before, I parked at the end of Higgs Rd. at the Southern end of South Pender Island and swam out to the far side of the little island in the bay. This was on July 2, 2017.

I swam out on the surface to the far side of the islet in the middle of the bay and descended there. Visibility was about 20'. Down to about 30' deep, the bottom was covered with big blades of bottom kelp. Below that, the kelp disappeared and I could see the rocks. The bottom was a steep slope of boulders and small walls. Despite diving on the Boundary Passage current table slack on a day with a small exchange, the current was actually almost too strong to swim against. I turned East and swam into it along the slope. I was hoping to explore some of the large rocky areas sticking out from shore (visible on the sidescan image), but the unexpected current made me stay close to shore. My maximum depth was 100'. Most of these pictures were taken between 60-100' deep. I couldn't really take proper photos because of the current. I almost had to snap random shots as I struggled past in the flow. There is a decent amount of small, colourful invertebrate life covering the rocks, but it's not very noticeable in the from-a-distance wide-angle photos. I noticed that some areas were covered with the same small white barnacles that colonized many areas last year (eg. Ten Mile Pt.). They weren't here years ago. They seem to have displaced much of the other encrusting invertebrate life.

I turned around and drifted back with the current along the slope around 60' deep. There were more clusters of plumose anemones in this direction and I even saw a basket star. Years ago when I dove at Drummond Bay I was impressed by a huge school of yellowtail rockfish. Today, there weren't as many, but there were still some smaller schools scattered around. I usually see lots of Puget Sound king crabs in this area of Pender Island, but today I didn't see a single one (I did a second dive at nearby Tilly Point and didn't see any there either).