These are a group of small islands just South of Large Bedford Island (on the outside of Becher Bay). They don't have a name on the marine chart so I'll call them "Bedford Islets". I took my boat out to this area on Sept. 16, 2012. It was a calm, low-wind day, but it was a bad day for current (large exchange) so I was limited to spots that were sheltered from the current. I thought I would be stuck diving inside the bay, but I went out and had a look at the Bedford Island group anyway. I've always wanted to try diving the cluster of tiny islands just South of Large Bedford. They drop on the East side to about 60 feet deep and they stick out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca which should result in lots of current. I usually see a swirling flow of current around them, but today I must have been lucky because the kelp was lying calmly on the surface (it was about 2 hours before the Race Passage turn to flood). I paddled in past the kelp and anchored in a narrow gap between the two main islets. Once I swam down past the surfgrass, stalked kelp and bull kelp in the top 30 feet, the rocky area sloped steeply to about 50 feet deep. Visibility was about 20 feet, which is half of what it was last week in this area. The current here was actually pretty strong and seemed to change direction every few minutes. Despite the current, the rocks seemed to be covered with silt. I didn't see any of the colourful invertebrate life that I would expect on an exposed reef in this area. Mostly, there were urchins and a few fish-eating anemones. There were a few small quillback and Puget Sound rockfish around the boulders. One area had a school of black rockfish over an octopus den. I swam around the corner at the Southern tip of the islet, but the current was too strong to swim against. I saw a hint of current-loving life here (a small patch of hydrocoral between two boulders), but other than that, there were still only urchins. The current was getting stronger so I swam back up to the shallower area near my boat, where there were more fish-eating anemones and a small, cavern-like vertical crack in a wall, which had a bit more colour than the rest of the dive. Overall, I was surprised and a bit disappointed by the lack of life here. I've seen more fish and colourful invertebrates at more sheltered sites in Becher Bay. Unless I read that these islets were the site of a prehistoric temple for Atlantean wizards, I don't think I'll bother diving here again.
