This is one of the islands off the Sidney area. I haven't taken my boat up here in years. Today (July 1, 2013) it was calm out and I was hoping the plankton blooms would have died off by now. I chose to dive at Sheep Island because it gets a fair amount of current and the chart shows a steep drop to about 150 feet deep on it's South-West side. I tied up in a tiny cove on the South-West side and swam straight out. Another zodiac-type boat was slowly cruising back and forth near shore here. Just before I swam out I saw a diver climb into it, so I wasn't the only one thinking of diving this spot. I was hoping for a steep, rocky drop, but the bottom was just a gentle slope of sand and gravel. Visibility was about 15 feet. When I was 30 feet deep I saw a rocky reef off to my left. It was pretty bare, with just a few urchins on it. I followed it deeper . I saw a fish-eating anemone, which is surprising this far up Haro Strait. There were a few copper and quillback rockfish and kelp greenlings. I was expecting much more colour in this current-swept area, but as I continued to swim along the reef, the invertebrate life increased. At first the rocks were covered with clumps of cemented tube worms. Eventually everything was smothered with those multicoloured colonies of tiny tunicates that you see in high-current areas in the Southern Gulf Islands.  The conglomerate rock rock formed a wall here that went down to about 60 feet deep. The reefs and ledges continued down to about 80 feet deep. Below that I could see more boulders and small reefs out on the sand. I was diving at around the Race Passage slack and I could feel enough of a current to make me stay close to shore. I saw a cabezon swimming around the boulders. One thing I found strange about this spot is the lack of plumose anemones on the wall compared to other similar local spots (Graham's Wall/ Rhea Island). I still think it was pretty decent, and I'll have to come back eventually to have a look farther along the wall.
anchored in tiny cove
seastars near shore
bare reef and urchins
copper rockfish and cemented tube worm clusters
urchins and fish-eating anemone
quillback rockfish and cemented tube worms
painted anemone
anemone and cemented tube worms
rockfish
kelp greenling and copper rockfish
rockfish
rockfish
tunicate colonies
tunicates
tunicates on the wall
tunicates on the wall
the wall
tunicates
tunicates on the wall
sponge on the wall
seastar at the bottom of the wall
under an overhang
copper rockfish
copper rockfish and cabezon
cabezon
the wall
the base of the wall
base of the wall
top of the wall
top of the wall
tunicates
sponge at the base of the wall
wall
top of the wall
copper rockfish at the top of the wall
copper rockfish
copper rockfish below tunicates
top of the wall
urchins and kelp in the current
urchins in the shallows
under the anchored boat