This is a small, steep island sticking up out of the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the entrance to Becher Bay. I've often tried diving here over the last couple of years, but the swirling current and the remnants of open Pacific swell always prevented me from anchoring my zodiac near the rocks. Today (Sept. 9, 2012), I was on my way to try diving Beechy Head, when I looked over my shoulder and didn't see any white around West Bedford Island. Figuring that this doesn't happen too often, I motored in close to the island and noticed that there didn't seem to be much current either. I threw my anchor up on to the rocks and went in for a dive on the West side of the island. Visibility was about 40 feet as I swam down through the bull kelp forest. At 30 feet, there were clusters of urchins on the rocks and schooling black rockfish around the stalked kelp. I noticed that most of the rock surfaces were covered with a carpet of tiny white and grey burrowing cucumbers. The reef dropped down in a small wall covered with plumose anemones, clumps of hydrocoral and some kind of yellow-orange tunicate colonies. The base of this wall was dotted with orange burrowing cucumbers. A cabezon swam off when I tried to swim close enough for a decent picture. This was all about 50 feet deep. I swam around the corner to the tip of the island facing the open Strait. The sloping reef was covered with more of those burrowing cucumbers. below 50 feet deep, the bottom gently sloped down in a field of rubble, boulders and small rocky reefs. There were fish-eating anemones and more plumose anemones and hydrocoral here. I went down to about 70 feet deep here and I could have kept swimming out deeper (I could see more plumose-shrouded reefs in the distance), but the noticeable and threatening current made me turn around back towards the side of the island where I anchored. The bottom sloped down gently here too. There were small walls, ridges of rock and boulders stretching out into the bay. I saw an octopus out in the open. Even some of the flat sandy areas were covered with the tiny burrowing cucumbers. As I was swimming near a plumose anemone-covered rock outcropping 80 deep, the surrounding school of black rockfish suddenly darted away and a Steller's sealion swooped down. My strobe didn't recycle quickly enough for a proper picture. I wanted to keep following the reefs out deeper, but my air was running out and the current was picking up. I swam back up through the kelp and had my weekly quota of cardio exercise swimming against the current in the shallows back to my boat. I was actually surprised by the variety of marine life on these reefs. I need to go back to explore more of this area around West Bedford although unfortunately, given what I've seen of the typical conditions here, it likely won't be anytime soon.
