After a gap of several years, I came back to the Gillingham Islets on March 2, 2025. I swam out on the surface from Saxe Point Park.
I stayed around the West side of the Islets. My maximum depth was 30', but much of the dive was in the top 20'. There seemed to be less colour compared to years ago. My memory and older photos show lots of orange colonial tunicates and yellow sponges, but today I didn't notice any. The rock surfaces seemed mostly grey-brown from silty diatoms (except where the red urchins were grazing it away). Many of the rock walls on the sides of the reefs were covered with small barnacles. I noticed this at many other local sites starting around 2016. The barnacle "invasion" (which only lasted a couple of years in many places) seemed to replace much of the colourful invertebrate life on the rocks. Last month during a dive at Saxe Point, I saw the same covering of barnacles there as well. Today at Gillingham Islets, the barnacles seemed to be dying off. The shells were mainly empty and yellow-brown instead of white. One benefit (for nudibranchs anyway) is the large increase in barnacle-eating dorids. Like at nearby Saxe Point, they (and their eggs) were covering the rocks in some areas. Visibility by the way, was only 10'. There seemed to be lots of stirred-up sediment.
