Last time I was here, I dove straight out from the government dock. This time (Dec. 20, 2015) I wanted to swim North around the corner of the bay towards Porlier Pass. In ancient times, divers called this spot "Pringle Park". I couldn't find any recent references calling it that. I only found an old, local news article from 1986 explaining why the boat ramp here was abandoned. I caught the ferry over from Victoria and dropped off my gear at "Pringle Park" (you're not allowed to park on the nearby road) and then parked near the North Galiano (also called "Spanish Hills") government dock. I then walked back and entered the water at the abandoned cement boat ramp.
Outside of the bay, there was a wall that went down to about 40' deep. There were lots of angular boulders at the base. I was diving about an hour after the Porlier Pass slack. At this time, the tables showed a 2-knot ebb in Porlier Pass, but I didn't feel any current here.
As I continued to swim North, this rocky area became progressively deeper. My maximum depth was around 100', but the rocky wall/boulder slope continued deeper than that. There were lots of feather stars, cup corals, cemented tube worm colonies, clusters of plumose anemones and urchins. I didn't see many fish. I saw a lingcod, a few rockfish (copper and yellowtail), kelp greenlings, painted greenlings and groups of perch. For some reason, most of the rocks were also covered with small, white barnacles. I don't remember seeing this many of them on previous dives in the area a few years ago. I suspect the 2013-2014 sunflower star die-off allowed the barnacles to spread. I've been seeing this all over Southern Vancouver Island. I expect to see lots of Puget Sound king crabs on Galiano Island and today I saw around 7 of them here.
