Last Friday (July 29, 2016) I did a dive at 10-Mile Point with a video camera. I was shocked to see small white barnacles covering much of the wall. My last dive here was 3 months earlier (in April) and I didn't see these barnacles then. Since I started diving in 1997, I've only seen these barnacles in the intertidal zone. There were a few exceptions years ago (eg. Yarrow Point in Saanich Inlet), where I'd see these barnacles below 60' deep. Lately I've been seeing these barnacle populations exploding at depths where I've never seen them. The end of the Ogden Point Breakwater is one example. I've started to notice this since the seastar die-off around 2014. Seastars are a barnacle predator so the lack of seastars (mainly sunflower stars) may be allowing barnacles to grow in peace. My other amateur theory is that the warmer sea temperatures (I haven't really noticed an increase in sea temps, but science people are talking about it) are allowing barnacle larvae to settle at deeper depths. Anyway, the barnacle infestation at 10-Mile Pt. really makes the site look different to me. I did another dive on Aug. 3, 2016 to take some photos. The purple/orange/white/etc. colonies of tunicates here have noticeable declined. For some reason I also didn't see any hydrocoral on these dives, even in spots where it was common a few months ago. I'm hoping I just didn't notice the hydrocoral because of the bad visibility (6-8').
I was thinking that if there are this many barnacles after only 3 months, how many will there be in a year or two? Hopefully they won't displace all of the colourful invertebrates that Ten Mile Point is known for. Now I want to dive at all of my other favorite local spots to see if the barnacle populations have exploded there as well in the last few months.
