Possession Point is a large, steep point sticking out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca between East Sooke Park and Sooke Inlet. The area (Silver Spray developments) is destined to be one of Vancouver Island's Albertan colonies, with part-time-occupied luxury homes, a golf course and a private marina. The point itself is a scenic, windswept height with deer, bald eagles, seals and river otters. It's looking forward to a future as an exclusive resort spa (the clearcutting and blasting has already taken place). Maybe they ran out of money or decided that the Vancouver Island market can only handle 48,000 luxury resorts, since the development seems to have stalled years ago. The point is now a popular spot for the public to watch sunsets. The zoning map still shows this as private property, but there are no "No Trespassing" signs and the owners seem to be resigned to the locals treating it as a public park. At the end of East Sooke Road there's a large gate blocking the road. The gate is usually open during the day, but there's a sign saying that it closes at 4:30 on weekdays. Just past the gate there is a gravel road leading to a large, leveled gravel lot at the point. On the West side of the point, a steep, narrow trail leads down to the water. I came here a few times, hoping to try for a dive, but the swells were crashing up on the rocks and there was no way I could safely get in the water, nevermind get out. Finally, the weather report was decent (May 6, 2010) so I drove out to the point. Probably the most difficult thing about this dive spot is getting down to the water. The steep trail is covered with loose rock and slippery mud. Down by the water, the barnacle and mussel-covered rock drops off underwater to about 10 feet deep. Even on a calm day, this place was designed to shred drysuits. I slid down the cheese-grater into the water. There was a giant green anemone directly under me. Visibility was about 20 feet. I swam out to the left towards the tip of the point. Once past the kelp-topped shallows, there was a wall that went down to a sandy bottom about 40 feet deep. The wall was covered with plumose anemones, fish-eating anemones, tunicate colonies, hedgehog hydroids, cup corals and patches of tiny octocorals. A Puget Sound king crab clung to the wall. As I swam around the point, the wall turned into a sloping rocky reef with a field of rubble at it's base. This ended in sand at about 50 feet deep. I was diving during a minimal-current window, but I could still feel a slight flow. There wasn't as much invertebrate life here as on the wall, but there were groups of fish-eating anemones everywhere. There were smallish copper, quillback, vermilion, black and yellowtail rockfish, kelp greenlings, small lingcod and a cabezon. I saw a dark cloud puff up in front of me from a camouflaged octopus swimming away. It landed nearby and tolerated a few photos before I left it alone. I swam up the reef to the stalked-kelp-covered shallows. There were several "surge channels" cut through the rock. I saw a strange fuzzy coating around one of them. When I swam closer, I could see that the rocks were covered with strawberry anemones. This is only the second time I've seen them in the Victoria area (the other place was Race Rocks). The inside of the tiny canyon was full of hydrocoral and urchins. I had two tanks in my car so I had to do a second dive here. I wanted to see orcas and elephant seals so I put on a macro lens. I saw a grunt sculpin at the base of the wall as well as several varieties of nudibranchs. An Irish lord was sitting on the strawberry anemones, but it was difficult to get a picture with the surge and the blades of kelp waving around. At the end of the dive I tore up my dry gloves and added some more holes to my drysuit's knees from climbing out of the water. Despite the hazards of the trail, the water-entry/exit and the threat of waves and current, I think that this is my new favorite Victoria-area shore dive. Hopefully the public access will continue to not be an issue.
