I came back to the Salal Road shore access on Dec. 9, 2023. I wanted to try and explore more around the big rocky area that the sidescan image shows sticking out from shore in Tumbo Pass. I picked the wrong day to go diving here since it was pouring rain all day and even though this was the sheltered side of Saturna Island the high winds were making waves crash into the shoreline (with small logs tumbling around). As I was gearing up on the road, I heard a crash and a tree blew down onto the road near where I had parked. The short, but steep drop to the water is tricky enough to climb down when it is dry, but today it was a wet, muddy slide that I had to scoot down on my butt. Then there were the slippery algae and lichen covered boulders to climb down. Then the waves... (on my way out of the water after my second dive, a log being tossed in the surf broke my camera's strobe arm). Finally after making it into the water and away from the shallows, visibility was a decent 20-30', but dark because of the time of year and the weather.
The rocks in the top 30'-40' or so are pretty lifeless. This area is bathed by the outflow of the Fraser River in the Spring. Since fresh water is toxic to marine life and the fresh water layer floats on top of the more-dense salt water, there probably aren't many species that can survive this extended annual toxic bath. The most common species were red urchins. Once down past these shallows, I swam out to try and find the big rocky area. At first I didn't recognize any areas from my previous dives here earlier this year. The bottom seemed to be mostly sand/gravel with a few isolated boulders and low, flat rock reefs. Eventually I reached some of the flat reefs with basket stars on the that I remembered from before. I think today's dives were too far to the right from where the large rocky area was. I was diving when the Tumbo Pass tide table and the Boat Pass current tables were showing minimal exchange and I didn't feel much current.
I couldn't find the area where I saw some soft coral last time (the small, pale kind that I've only ever seen before off Galiano Island). To make up for it, today I saw a branching hydrocoral near one of the basket stars. I think this was about 80' deep. My maximum depth at the base of the low reefs was 90' at a pretty high tide.
I swam back up the shallower reefs to shore.
If it wasn't for the basket stars, this area would seem sort of barren at a distance, although there are the occasional surprise treats like the soft coral, the hydrocoral and the trumpet sponges down deeper. The ecosystem still seems unique enough to make me want to come back. Next time I'll have to try again to find the big rocky area.
