I haven't been diving here at Morecroft Park for a few years. The problem with diving here is that the tide has to be pretty high to make it possible to swim out of the bay. I've made the mistake a couple of times of diving here when the tide is too low. I had to wade out through very shallow water and then climb over the rocky reefs that block off the bay's entrance. Today (Oct. 6, 2024) I noticed that the Nanaimo tide table was showing a pretty high tide of 10-12' for most of the day. This was high enough to make the bay deep enough to swim instead of wade and also high enough to be able to swim over the shallow reefs at the bay's entrance. I drove up here and hiked down the gravel trail for 2 dives ( these photos are from the 1st dive. I took video on the second).
I swam out across the shallow bay. It was only a few feet deep and visibility was unusually clear, probably at least 40'. I've seen this here before and now I wonder if the carpet of oysters covering the bottom of most of the bay filters the water. There are signs on the beach saying it's illegal to kill the shellfish so that probably accounts for their abundance. There were also some areas covered with sand dollars.
Once outside of the bay, the visibility dropped to about 20' (there are no oysters outside the bay). I snapped a quick photo of a California sea lion as it sped past. I started the swim down the rock, sand and rubble slope. Below 30' deep, the visibility cleared up and I could see at least 50'.
It took me longer than expected to reach the deeper wall area out to my left (North). The main part of the wall dropped down from 50' deep at the top to 90' deep at its base.
The small, old anchor used to be standing dramatically up on its side. Now it has fallen down flat.
At the base of the wall I saw 3 of the largest boot sponges I've ever seen growing straight up from the rubble bottom. I'd guess they were 4' tall. I didn't notice any huge sponges here years ago so they must have been much smaller back then.
Years ago, there was a rubble area at the base of the wall about 95' deep that had lots of tiny cloud sponges. Today, they were mostly gone, but I did see 3 still there.
I swam back up to the top of the wall and headed back to shore.
Because of the semi-long hike, the tidal considerations and the swim out to the wall I don't think this will ever be a popular Nanoose-area dive site. I'll probably come back again though.
