I was hoping to dive somewhere outside Becher Bay today (Nov. 11, 2009), but the usual small swell discouraged me from tying up to the exposed coastline. -So I went back to Smyth Head. This time I tied up in a tiny, narrow cove on the West side of the point. This would make for a shorter swim out to the deeper area and I could have a look at some new-to-me parts of this site. From the surface to about 50 feet deep, there was a maze of canyons and reefs with lots of fish-eating anemones, urchins and kelp greenlings. Visibility was about 30 feet. I eventually made it to a wall that went down to about 85 feet deep. There was a large school of black and yellowtail rockfish (I almost expect them in the Becher Bay/East Sooke area now), but I didn't see any of the vermilion and canary rockfish that I saw last time. The wall seemed to be a bit more colourful though. Most of it was covered with orange colonial tunicates and there were clumps of hydrocoral and plumose anemones. I think that this is the other end of the wall that I visited last time I was here.
