This South side of East Point is the spot that I've always thought has the potential to be the best dive site on Saturna Island. The marine chart shows an almost straight-down drop underwater to about 400' deep. There is also very strong current rushing along the point. It's a spot I've been wanting to dive for a long time. I came to Saturna Island about 12 years ago hoping to dive here, but I didn't think it was safe to climb down the sandstone cliffs wearing all my dive gear (back then I ended up doing a less-intimidating dive on the shallower, less-steep, less-current North side of the point). I never gave up my fascination with this spot and I took the ferry from Victoria to Saturna Island again on Jan. 23, 2016 for a second try on diving here from shore. Near East Point Park, there's a public access trail to the South side of the point from Cliffside Rd. At the end of this trail (maybe 200 meters long) I found a spot on the shoreline just East of the end of the trail where it looked like it might not be fatal to climb down to the water.
Underwater, there was a narrow shallow area and then the bottom dropped down in a wall. Visibility was only 15' at the most, which was less than I was expecting. In the shallows, there were just urchins, but below 30-40' deep the wall had lots of plumose anemones, cup corals, encrusting sponge, tunicate colonies, red slipper cucumbers and even some patches of hydrocoral. I saw 4 Puget sound king crabs and up close I noticed lots of shrimp clustered on the wall. I was expecting to see some basket stars, but I didn't see any. I also didn't see many fish. I didn't see a single rockfish, but I saw a few perch, kelp greenlings and a lingcod egg mass. There was a large overhang around 60' deep that blocked out much of the light. I tried to time the dive for slack current, but I wasn't sure which table to use. I had looked at the Boundary Pass and the Turn Point current tables and the Current Atlas. They all sort-of showed slack at around noon so that's when I was in the water, but the current was actually worryingly-strong. I could swim against it and it wasn't sweeping me away, but I had no idea if it was going to get stronger. I swam against it towards the tip of the point. I was hoping to go below 100' deep or so to see what the life was like down there, but I only reached 80' deep before my "don't be stupid" alter ego told me not to go any deeper. In some places I felt a current flowing straight down the wall. I swam around a corner on the wall and there was a wall of current that I couldn't swim against. I had had enough so I ascended back up the wall and got out of the water while I could after being under for only 30 minutes.
I think this was a pretty good dive, but considering the hazards of climbing down the rocks (only possible on a very calm day) and dealing with the current and the depth, I don't know if it's worth the risk.
