I couldn't leave this place alone without seeing what was farther down the wall so I came back to Gabriola on Nov. 20, 2008. The tide was high this time so it was easier to get in and out of the water. Visibility in the bay was at least 30 feet. I could see the bottom during the whole swim across. Instead of swimming directly to the point across the bay like last time, today I swam to where the point continued out underwater (if that makes any sense). My idea was to skip the part of the wall that I saw previously and drop down onto a "fresh" part of the wall. When I saw the rocky reef pop up under me, I descended and swam over it to the far side where the wall fell straight down farther than I could see. The "mini Malaspina Gallery" was still here about 40 feet deep. It was covered with tiny white plumose anemones. This ledge/overhang seemed to run along the wall for quite a distance. I dropped down past it and met a sandy bottom at around 80-90 feet deep. Visibility was around 50 feet. The wall was covered with feather stars. I followed it along the base and it gradually went deeper. I made it to 120 feet and it continued to slope deeper off into the distance. I swam back up to around 80 feet, where the wall was covered with anemones (plumose, crimson and dahlia/painted?), They were really packed on that wall along with more feather stars and countless cup corals. This wall is really massive. It was a straight drop (with several overhangs) of about 60 feet. I was surprised not to see any sponges, but all those anemones definitely made up for it. There weren't many fish, but I did see a few rockfish (copper/quillback), small lingcod and kelp greenlings. By the way, I mentioned previously that this wall meets up with the Snake Island wall, but looking at a more detailed-scale chart, it's obvious that the contour lines really aren't that close together and that a big, relatively flat area separates them.
