Whenever I've been up diving off Campbell River, it's been in the Winter. This time I went up for a weekend near the end of Summer. This is the first dive I did during this trip (Sept. 2, 2023). The site is a large cliff (stained with streaks of green copper oxide) that drops down underwater from Quadra Island.
Visibility was about 20', but it was kind of dark since we were in the shade. There was a pretty strong current swirling along the wall. Almost immediately there was a downwelling pulling me down the wall. Even swimming hard, I couldn't really swim against it. It pulled me down to about 70' and then there was an upwelling pushing me back up. This continued a few times throughout the dive. Because of this strong current, I wasn't really able to stop and have a good look at all the small things on the wall or properly compose photos. The wall doesn't have the usual covering of Discovery Pass invertebrates like strawberry anemones or the variety of yellow sponges although there are areas with plumose anemones, yellow sulfur sponges and even feather duster worms. There were some strawberry anemones around some boulders on a ledge at 90', which was my maximum depth.
This site has a very different feel than many of the other Discovery Pass sites that I've dove. Apart from the dramatic wall, there seems to be much less of the pink/yellow that completely covers the other sites. I think it would be worth coming back to when the visibility is better and the current is lower.
