The East side of Secretary Island is a spot I've wanted to do for a long time. The chart shows a steep, deep drop down to around 200' deep. Usually when I've taken my boat here, there were waves smacking against the rocks so I couldn't bring my boat close to the shore. Today (Sept. 13, 2020) the water was flat, there was no wind and barely any swell. The only negative condition was the fog-like haze from the wildfires drifting up from the U.S.
I swam straight out from shore. Visibility was a nice 40'. Right under where I tied up my boat there was a boulder that had one side covered with hydrocorals.
I swam down the slope, which was a series of walls, sandy ledges and boulders. There wasn't the coating of colourful invertebrates that I saw in the channel on the North side of the island, but there were lots of cup corals, urchins and fish-eating anemones.
As I went deeper, the amount of rockfish increased. They were mostly yellowtail, with some black and canary. My maximum depth was 125' and the bottom kept dropping deeper.
With the good visibility, this was a beautiful dive. Like I mentioned, it didn't have quite as dense invertebrate life as the channel end of the island, but I assume current also isn't as much of an issue.
