After a dive off East Sooke Park (Oct. 18, 2009) I wanted to do a second one nearby, but I couldn't find a spot that was sheltered enough to tie up my boat. The swells weren't that big, but they were enough to smack my boat around on the rocks. I went back into Becher Bay and anchored on the sheltered side of lamb Island, which is a tiny island inhabited by a bald eagle and a family of river otters. According to the marine chart, you can get down to about 100 feet here eventually. I descended and swam around to the side facing the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The shallows had the usual Juan de Fuca fish-eating anemones, urchins and coraline algae. The island dropped down steeply to about 40 feet deep. Visibility was around 30 feet. The rocks were siltier down here away from the surge in the shallows. At the base of the rocky area there was a steep slope of silty sand. I figured that this was going to be one of those "learning experience" dives, but I continued to follow the base of the reef. Eventually, there were a series of rock reefs stretching out from the island on the sandy slope. I saw a few vermilion rockfish and a cabezon. I swam around a corner and ran into a large school of rockfish. They were mostly blacks and yellowtails. Below them there were large groups of canary rockfish and more vermilions. This was in addition to several copper rockfish, quillback rockfish, kelp greenlings, perch, lingcod and another school of Puget Sound rockfish. A patch of white caught my eye and it was a male wolfeel hanging out in the open. This was probably the greatest variety of fish I've ever seen in one view. There were also clusters of plumose anemones. all this was about 75-100 feet deep. I could see more reefs and plumose anemones in the distance, but my depth and air-supply made me reluctantly turn around. If I ever show up to dive off Becher Bay and it's too windy to go to the exposed spots, I'll remember this place.
