I came out to East Sooke Park again (Oct. 19, 2009) hoping to try to dive Beechy Head, but, like last time, the small swell discouraged me from tying up my boat near the rocks. Nearby, there was a tiny sheltered cove so I tied up to the steep rocks and had a look underwater. Visibility was about 40 feet and there was a steep rocky slope with kelp, fish-eating anemones, urchins, hydrocoral and all the other colourful stuff you see in the exposed Strait of Juan de Fuca. This slope seemed to end at about 40 feet deep and then there was a gentler slope of sand with some rocky reefs. There were more urchins on these reefs, along with fish-eating and crimson anemones. There was a slight current and judging by the invertebrates, it could probably be much stronger at times. I made it down to about 100 feet deep, where there was a small wall with more crimson anemones, branching yellow sponges, cup corals, etc. I was minding my own business, taking photos, when two huge Steller's sealions charged in and started playing around. They did the usual charging in and veering off at the last second, blowing bubbles in my face and spinning in circles around me. They did this for a minute or two while I tried to snap off as many poorly-aimed photos as possible. Eventually they sped back up to the surface for a breath. Maybe it was a combination of the depth, the mild narcosis and the distance from shore in a noticeable current, but I was a bit nervous at the thought of them coming back. I could picture them tugging on my hoses/fins and generally playing a bit rough so I swam back up the slope to the shallower area where there was a large school of black and yellowtail rockfish in the kelp. I figured that they could act as an early-warning system and scatter away if the sealions came back. I waited around for a bit, hoping to get some better photos of the sealions in the brighter, shallower water, but they never turned up so I continued poking around in the shallows. I saw a brilliant orange and black rock greenling, which is only the second one I've ever seen. It took off into the surfgrass as soon as I saw it. One of these days I'll manage to get a picture of one. Up near the surface, I saw what I thought was a lion's mane jellyfish caught on the rocks. It turned out to be an octopus crawling around (maybe eating the large mussels in the intertidal zone). I took a few pictures of it while it changed colours and crept off into a barnacle-lined crack. On the swim back to my boat I saw a few giant green anemones in the shallows. They weren't that giant (maybe 6-8" across), but it added to the wild, West-coast feeling of this dive.
