Today (Aug. 31, 2025) at Tilly Point visibility was disappointing near shore and in the cavern. As I swam out from the cavern down along the wall, visibility increased to at least 30'. Along with all the regular pictures I took, I also took a bunch in sequence to stitch together as panoramas, with varying success.
As usual, I headed straight for the shallow entrance to the cavern:
At one point, there was a big cloud of sediment filling the cavern. Fortunately the current carried it away. I didn't think that it could have been caused by me. Then I turned around and saw a harbour seal behind me in the tunnel. I got a couple of pictures before it swam away.
I swam down through the narrow crack at the back of the cavern and exited on the outside wall.
I was surprised to see an orange peel nudibranch. I've never seen one here before. I usually associate them with various soft coral species and I've never seen soft coral here either.
Something I wanted to investigate today was a shallow peak, almost like a pinnacle above the wall. This shallow area is shown on the marine chart. During the Summer you can see a patch of bull kelp in this area from the beach. I've always followed the base of the wall about 60-70' deep. Today I wanted to see if I could find this shallow peak. When I was at the part of the wall where I estimated that the shallow peak would be, I swam up to the top of the wall to see if I could find it. There was a sandy ledge and then another low rocky area rose up starting at about 30' deep. This rocky wall had a small overhang at its bottom with lots of plumose anemones and sea pens. I could see bull kelp stretching up to the surface, but I think this area wasn't shallow enough to be the "pinnacle" I was looking for. The top of this rocky area was probably about 20', while the marine chart shows the area reaching only 6' deep at very low tides.
I wasn't really sure where I was along the top of the wall and I didn't want to get lost out there with the threat of current (I could feel a bit flowing around), so I dropped back down to the familiar bottom of the wall.
