This is the wreck of a wooden, 60-feet-or-so long fishing boat in Deep Bay (a bit South of Fanny Bay). I came here on Oct. 12, 2007 after diving the barge in Union Bay. I wasn't sure exactly where the wreck was in Deep Bay so I asked at the dive shop in Union Bay. They gave me directions and I drove over and visually confirmed them with a guy in the store by the parking lot. The wreck is around 60 feet deep on the right-hand (when looking out from shore) side of the bay. In the middle of the bay there is a marina/boat ramp/parking lot. On the right side, there is a sandy spit (with houses on most of it) that ends in a little park with sandy beaches (at low tide), a navigational marker and narrow trails through the beach grass. The road going along this spit is called "Deep Bay Drive" (if I read the signs correctly). As you are driving towards the point on this spit, notice the houses with numbers: 5508 to 5520 on the left side of the road. The wreck is less than 100 feet offshore from these houses (sorry, that's about as specific as I can get). You can't get to the water from here since it's private property, so I drove to the park at the end of the spit, parked, put on all my stuff and walked back along the beach (towards the marina) for a few minutes. I entered the water and swam down the sandy slope until I reached 50-60 feet deep. I then turned left (continuing along the shore away from the point) and swam at this depth until I saw the wreck at around 60 feet deep (high tide). Visibility was around 20 feet. I saw the stern first with it's rudder and missing propeller. Plumose anemones were covering parts of the hull and deck. I swam along the port side to the bow which was also covered in plumose anemones and bits of rope or wire. There were several copper rockfish and perch swimming around and there was a large field of crab shells under the bow. There's obviously an octopus den under the bow, but I didn't want to get too close to the bottom for a look (which would stir up the silt). I noticed that the sand around the wreck was covered with brittle stars. I swam up to the deck of the boat which was mostly rotted away and full of little holes from "ship worms" (boring clams). You could see down into the hold which was mostly empty except for a bit of piping and some milk crates. Much of the superstructure was also gone. There was a bit of the after part of a cabin still standing. A toilet from the washroom was still there, but most of the walls were gone around it. On top of this cabin, there was a funnel-like exhaust stack with what looked like a muffler on it. Nearby, on the bottom, there was what was probably the remains of the ceiling of the wheelhouse. There was still the bracket attached for the life raft cannister. I swam around the wreck a few times, took some pictures and my computer told me to leave. I went back up the slope towards the point. In the shallows, there were fields of hairy, black sand dollars half-buried in the sand. Back on shore, I saw a few California sea lions swimming past the end of the spit (and heard a few more). Driving back along the spit, there's an area on the left with a bench with wheelchair-wheels and a great view of Chrome Island and it's lighthouse. Under the lighthouse is the historic wreck of the Alpha, but you need a boat for that.
