This is the dock at the end of Beacon Ave. in Sidney. There's a fish market, a restaurant and a small ferry float on the dock. There's been a dock here for over 100 years, but I assume this one isn't the original. I haven't been impressed with the silty, mostly bare area around the fishing pier nearby, but I was looking down into the water on the government dock one day and I could see anemones on the pilings and sunflower stars on the rocks. The water here also looked clearer than the murk around the reefballs and fishing pier. I picked a good-tide day and came here for a dive (July 4, 2010). I parked near the fishing pier and walked down a ramp to what the Chamber of Commerce calls "Glass Beach". I then swam out to the pilings under the fish market. Visibility here was about 10-15 feet. Sure enough, the pilings were covered with anemones, sunflower stars and tunicate colonies. There was less junk than expected under the dock. Maybe most of the old stuff has sunk under the sediment. Under the dock, close to shore, there were lots of copper rockfish and red rock crabs. There were also piles of fish remains from the fish market above. Mostly, they seemed to be large skates with the "wings" cut off. There were also some smaller flounder or sole. When I saw the scraps, I looked around for dogfish or octopus, but only crabs and seastars seemed interested in gorging themselves. The dock isn't very big, but I spent almost an hour looking around at all the stuff swimming around and growing on the pilings. This is the best 10-foot-deep dive I've done in awhile. Eventually, I left the dock and swam out towards the reefballs and fishing pier, hoping to find some old bottles and maybe see the cement sailboat wreck again. Out in the open here, the visibility dropped to 6-10 feet. The current was stirring up the silt that covered the bottom kelp blades. The only bottles I saw were more modern beer-types and not the crockery I was looking for. Anything old here is probably buried in the silt. Out of curiosity, I stuck my hand in the mud and it went in easily to past my elbow. There was almost no resistance. Under the thin top layer, which was grey, the mud was black. I saw 2 reefballs lying out by themselves, but there wasn't anything on them except for seaweed and silt. I couldn't find the sailboat so I swam to the main area of reefballs under the fishing pier. The reefballs were covered with bottom kelp so I couldn't see them. The pilings here were still bare except for seaweed and tiny barnacles.
