This is one of the more well-known shore dives on Galiano Island. It's mentioned in the 99 Dives/151 Dives guide books. I assume the site is named after the Madrona Lodge, a group of motel-style cabins that occupies the waterfront next to the dive site. The dive site was popularised decades ago when the lodge was a dive resort, complete with an air fill station. The compressor and dive theme are gone, but this would still be a convenient place for divers to stay while shore diving Galiano Island. I took the ferry from Victoria (at 5:50 AM!) for a day trip of shore diving on Feb. 25, 2012. The address of the Madrona Lodge is 18715 Porlier Pass Road. Just before the lodge, (it looks like it's part of the same property) there's a small gravel parking lot with room for 2 cars and a public access trail to the water. The trail is pretty short (except when you're climbing back uphill) and it ends at a small sandstone-boulder beach. I swam straight out underwater. There was a series of rock ledges dropping down almost immediately to about 60 feet deep. Then there was a slope of sand that I followed down to about 90 feet deep. Visibility was 20-30 feet. There were feather stars, a few smallish sea whips, an urchin-covered dinghy and a tree stump on this sandy slope. I swam back up to the rocky area and turned right (when facing shore). The rock here turned into a wall that dropped from almost near the surface to about 55-60 feet deep. The top 45 feet was covered with cemented tube worms, tiny tunicates, cup corals and some plumose anemones. Below 45 feet, feather stars covered most of the wall. There were also lots of large purple urchins. There were a few of those small, pale soft corals that I've only ever seen on Galiano Island. I saw some Puget Sound king crabs (1 large and several juveniles). There weren't many fish, mostly a few small copper/quillback rockfish and kelp greenlings. Eventually the wall became more of a boulder slope, but there was still all the same life as on the wall. I was diving a couple of hours before the Porlier Pass slack and I felt about a 1/2-knot of current (noticeable, but easy to swim against). I came back a few hours later and did another dive here with a close-up lens. I was actually pretty impressed with the invertebrate life at this dive site, the access was convenient and I wasn't stressed out by crazy depths.
