I had just had a dive off East Sooke Park (Aug. 14, 2010) and was planing to do a second one nearby, but the wind had picked up so I took my boat back to the relative shelter of Becher Bay. South West Islets are a group of small islands and rocks on the West side of Frazer Island in the middle of Becher Bay. The chart shows a finger-like reef sticking out on the West side of the largest islet. The tip of this reef drops down to 40-60 feet deep according to the depth-contour lines. I anchored my boat next to the largest islet and swam down through the kelp. Visibility was about 30 feet. Most of the top of the reef (15-30 feet deep) was covered with kelp, but there were a few gaps, where I could see urchins and a few fish-eating anemones. Below the kelp layer, I followed the reef out at about 45 feet deep. It was pretty silty down here. There were more urchins, clumps of plumose anemones and some orange burrowing cucumbers. There were kelp greenlings and a few solitary copper, quillback, vermilion, Puget Sound, black and yellowtail rockfish. Overall though, there weren't many fish compared to many of the other Becher Bay sites. I saw a great sculpin trying to look invisible on part of the reef. My maximum depth at the end of the reef was just over 50 feet. There were some small walls scattered up the reef crusted with coraline algae, urchins, cup corals, chitons and small, white burrowing cucumbers.
