Ten Mile Point: Scuba Diving Pictures

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Ten Mile Point in Victoria, B.C.
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Scuba Diving Pictures from Ten Mile Point in Victoria, B.C., Canada
These are medium quality jpegs. But I have the RAW images as well.
Email tjfidler@telus.net
Directions to this dive site can be found at the bottom of this page.
Type of dive: Can be done as a shore dive but recommend doing this as a boat dive.
Rating for this dive site: 7/10 due to the problem of current here, but a great abundance of life
Parking: maybe parking for 8 cars at both proper Ten Mile Point and Spring Bay
Bathroom/Washroom/Toilet: Not on site.
Boat ramp: none
Ease of entry: 5/10 for Ten Mile Point but 9/10 for Spring Bay [Wheel chair access: No]
Abundance of life: 9/10 as one of the most populated places due to the current
Accommodations: There are several places in Victoria that you could find lodging at. Including Hotels, Motels, Inns and Bed & Breakfasts.
Attractions: lots of hermit crabs even away from the wall, lots of starfish feeding on clams,
Bottom and depth: sandy away from wall, solid rock wall with rock debris at bottom
Facilities: none
Hazards/Obstacles: Current is almost always a hazard here. Some protection at Spring Bay side but not at the wall.
Sensitivity to tide/current: Very high current area.
Terrain: rocky areas, sandy bottom, solid rock walls abundant in life
Tides, transportation and weather: Fisheries and Oceans Canada Tide Page., BC Ferries Schedule and Sailings. , The Weather Network

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The following images are thumbnails. If you click on them a larger image will open up and the picture will take up most of your screen. Again these are medium qualifty jpegs. Higher quality images can be purchased directly from me via paypal using my email address tjfidler@telus.net And many of these photos can be found for sale on Cafepress through the Calendar link and Photo CD link. As well some of these can be found as posters via Cafepress, and some of these ocean life photographs are available as widescreen backgrounds via the widescreen link immediately below some of the photographs.

A few people have already asked me about "What is that pink stuff on the rocks in some of the pictures?" Well, they're usually Pink Rock Crust (aka Encrusting Coralline Algae) or in some cases might even be Encrusting Hydrocorals. They're eaten by a variety of animals - apparently as a good source of calcium.

Ten Mile Point has more Sea Anemones and Sponges than I've ever seen any where before. This is due to the currents at this location. This is a very dangerous place to dive. Use Extreme Caution.


Ten Mile Point parking lot	Ten Mile Point proper - very tricky getting into the water here.

Spring Bay parking lot	Spring Bay - very easy getting into the water here.

A view of Ten Mile Point from Spring Bay. Only about a ten minute swim. And often there is lots of stuff to see in the shallows.

Crustaceans


Bering Hermit Crab ~ about 5 inches [12.5 cm] wide on the shell. They are quite common at this dive location. (Sept 10, 2006)	Bering Hermit Crab - same hermit crab now part way out of its shell. (Sept 10, 2006)

Giant Acorn Barnacle surrounded by Lobed Compound Tunicates. The barnacles are very common at this site. (April 1, 2007)	Decorator Crab [most of the image]. Very common at this dive site. (Sept 10, 2006)

Widehand Hermit Crab ~ about 4 inches [10 cm] across the shell. (April 1, 2007)	Northern Kelp Crab ~ about12 inches [30 cm] with legs and claws. (Sept 10, 2006)

Red Rock Crab ~ about ten inches [25 cm] wide. (Sept 10, 2006)	A few Coonstriped Shrimp [Spirontocaris holmesi] checking out a dead crab. Less than 3 inches [7.5 cm] long. Also note the sculpin in the background. (Sept 10, 2006)

Sharp Nosed Crab [Scyra acutifrons] on Lobed Compound Tunicates (April 1, 2007)	Two Bering Hermit Crabs fighting over homes (April 5, 2007)

Widehand Hermit Crab ~ about 6 inches [15 cm] wide. This photograph is also found on one of the 2009 Calendars.Quite common here. (April 5, 2007)	Hairy Hermit Crab or a Bluespine Hermit Crab [Not sure] ~ 6 inches [15 cm] across the shell. This image is also found on one of the 2009 Calendars. Not that common here. (April 5, 2007)

Butterfly Crab [Cryptolithodes typicus] ~ about 2 inches [5 cm] wide. Spotted a few this day, but not the easiest animal to get a decent photo of. (April 5, 2009)	Heart Crab [Phyllolithodes papillosus] [missing some legs] ~ about 6 inches [15 cm] across its carapace.(April 5, 2007) I ran into this same animal on Apr 5, 2009. Its legs are coming back although they are small. I should have taken a picture, but the fishing line beside it made me stop.

Red Rock Crab ~ about 8 inches [20 cm] wide. Its quite common to find them slightly buried in the sand. As if they are hiding or were digging for food. (April 5, 2007)	Red Rock Crab - same crab as in image to left, now running away. (April 5, 2007)

Sharp Nosed Crab [Scyra acutifrons] ~ 6 inches [15 cm] long. Quite common at this dive site and its normal to find them with other lifeforms like lobe tunicates on them. (Sept 2009)	Decorator Crab ~ 4 inches [10 cm] wide with its arms included. (April 5, 2007)

Cancer Crab aka Pygmy Rock Crab [Cancer oregonensis] inside of the shell of a dead Giant Acorn Barnacle. About 4 inches [10 cm] at the opening of this "shell". (Sept 14, 2008)	Moss Crab [Loxorhynchus crispatus] sitting on the leg of a Leather Star [see star fish images for related image] About two inches [5 cm] across its carapace. (Sept 14, 2008)

Giant Acorn Barnacle ~ 3 inches [7.5 cm] wide for just its opening feeding "arms." (April 5, 2009)	Giant Acorn Barnacle ~ 4 inches [10 cm] in diameter. Can you guess what the long pinkish tube is that is sticking out of its body, and heading off in the top left direction of this image? (April 5, 2009)

Heart Crab [Phyllolithodes papillosus] ~ 2 inches [5 cm] wide. This is a young one. They get up to 4-5 inches across the main shell. (April 5, 2009)	This is just a short video showing you how the Giant Acorn Barnacles eat. Which is by using their "feet" to capture particles out of the water. (Sept 2009)

Puget Sound King Crab [Lopholithodes mandtii] (juvenile) ~ 2 inches [5 cm] wide and a Heart Crab [Phyllolithodes papillosus] ~ 4 inches [10 cm] widel.	Common Barnacle found along the shore and exposed at low tide. ~ 1 inch [2.5 cm] across.


Sculpin sitting on a Gumboot chiton. And a small hermit crab. ~ 2 inches [5 cm] long. (Sept 10, 2006)	Copper Rockfish [Sebastes caurinus] ~ 16 inches [40 cm] long. Common at this scuba diving site. (April 1, 2007)

Copper Rockfish [Sebastes caurinus] ~ 14 inches [35 cm] long. (Sept 10, 2006)	Ling Cod (juvenile) ~ 3 feet [1 m] long. Quite common at this dive site. (April 1, 2007)

Buffalo Sculpin ~ 14 inches [35 cm] long. Common at this scuba dive site. (April 1, 2007)	Painted Greenling ~ 12 inches [30 cm] long. Note a very good digital image, but it was the best one I was able to take of this fish. (April 5, 2007)

Grunt Sculpin ~ 4 inches [10 cm] long. Common at this dive site. (May 13, 2007)	Grunt Sculpin (May 13, 2007)

Buffalo Sculpin ~ about 12 inches [30 cm] long. (Sept 14, 2008)	A baby Buffalo Sculpin in the shallows. A lot more debris floating in the water... so a lot more back scatter than I like. (Sept 14, 2008)

A baby Longfin Sculpin. ~ 2 inches [5 cm] long. And a few Orange Cup Corals. (Sept 14, 2008)	Longfin Sculpin ~ 3 inches [7.5 cm] long. (April 5, 2009)

Scalyhead Sculpin ~ 5 inches [12.5 cm] long. Frequently seen at this scuba diving site. Note the shrimp in the back ground.	Quillback Rockfish [Sebastes maliger] ~ 12 inches [30 cm] long. Common at this scuba diving site. This one was located along one of the crevices along the wall near the large group of giant Plumose Anemones.

Red Irish Lord [Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus] ~ 18 inches [45 cm] long. This is the pinkest Red Irish Lord fish that I have ever spotted. I have a couple of better close up shots of this fish.	Copper Rockfish [Sebastes caurinus] ~ 16 inches [40 cm] long. And beside it a Scalyhead Sculpin. I was taking a picture of the sculpin and the rockfish came and sat in front of the camera. I was quite surprised by this. I ended up taking 4 pictures of it.

Video of Black Rockfish ~ 16 inches [40 cm] long. No still images as they don't stay still long enough and water quality too poor for a strobe.	Video image of Copper Rockfish ~ 16 inches [40 cm] long. Just swimming around.


Rock Scallop ~ about 12 inches [30 cm] across. (April 1, 2007)	Rock Scallop ~ about 12 inches [30 cm] across. (April 1, 2007)

Gumboot Chiton [see fish for close up of Sculpin on its back] ~ 12 inches [30 cm] long. Very common here. (Sept 10, 2006)	Rock Scallop ~ about 12 inches [30 cm] across. Very common here. (April 5, 2007)

Blue Lined Chiton ~ 2 inches [5 cm] long. My camera does not allow me to get much closer and still get a good picture. Or at least not quickly. However, under- water time is usually against me. (April 5, 2009)	Keyhole Limpet ~ 2 inches [5 cm] in diameter. Note the small Chiton on top of it. (April 5, 2009)


Clown Dorid [Triopha catalinae] ~ about 4 inches [10 cm] long. Very common here. (April 1, 2007)	Giant White Dorid ~ about 5 inches [12.5 cm] long. Not that common here. (April 1, 2007)

White Lined Dirona ~ about 5 inches [12.5 cm] long. (April 1, 2007)	Clown Dorid [Triopha catalinae] ~ about 6 inches [15 cm] long. (April 5, 2007)

A Lemon Dorid [Doris montereyensis] on sponge. ~ about 6 inches [15 cm] long. (April 5, 2009)	Cockerell's Dorid [Laila cockerelli] ~ 2 inches [5 cm] long. (April 5, 2009)

Hudson's Dorid ( I believe ) ~ 2 inches [5 cm] long. (April 5, 2009)


Anemones - the wall here is well covered or populated by these and the Giant Plumose Anemones. These are at most only about 12 inches [30 cm] in width. (April 1, 2007)	Giant Plumose Anemones ~ over two feet [60 cm] tall. With some type of colonial tunicates at their base - the brown stuff, and a couple of Giant Acorn Barnacles. Ten Mile Point has huge numbers of these animals. (April 1, 2007)

Zoanthids and Creeping Petal Sea Cucumbers (April 5, 2007)	Purple Encrusting Hydrocoral ~ 12 inches [30 cm] wide. (April 5, 2009)

Pink Encrusting Hydrocoral ~ 6 inches [15 cm] tall. The normal flat variety. (April 5, 2009)	Pink Encrusting Hydrocoral ~ 4 inches [10 cm] wide. Note that it is beginning to grow "spikes." (April 5, 2009)

Pink Encrusting Hydrocoral ~ 16 inches [40 cm] wide. Much more "spike" growth on this one. Hopefully it will become more "tree-like" making it even more beautiful. (April 5, 2009)	This video gives you an idea of the number of Giant Plumose Anemones at the wall at Ten Mile Point. It starts at about a depth of 35 feet and extends down to about 85 feet. [Plus or minus the height of the tide at the time.]

Pink Tipped Anemones ~ 3 inches [7.5 cm] for the larger ones. There were more of these animals here then I've ever seen before. On my way back from the point I was swimming along the shore to Spring Bay and I saw thousands of them.


Red Sea Urchin ~ about 12 inches [30 cm] wide. (Sept 10, 2006)	Mottled Star ~ about 2 feet [60 cm] across. (Sept 10, 2006)

Blood Star and a Clown Dorid (April 1, 2007)	Ochre Star [Not sure what it is doing? Itchy?] (April 1, 2007)

Sunflower Star being touched by a Painted Star (April 1, 2007)	Painted Star (April 1, 2007)

Sea Cucumber ~ less than 2 feet [60 cm] long. (April 1, 2007)	A young Sunflower Star ~ about 16 inches [40 cm] across. (April 1, 2007)

A young Purple Sea Urchin ~ about 5 inches [12.5 cm] wide.(April 5, 2007)	Sea Cucumber ~ about 2 feet [60 cm] long. (April 5, 2007)

A young White Sea Cucumber hiding in behind some lobed tunicates. (April 5, 2007)	Sunflower Star eating something ~ 3 feet [1 metre] wide. Very common here. (April 5, 2007)

Leather Star with a Moss Crab sitting on one of its legs. This seems to be a fairly common even. I often notice crabs sitting on starfish. And the starfish can actually be active and on the move. Which might not sound like much but the Sunflower Starfish move reasonable fast. Like a turtle walking for their more common speed, and a turtle running for their top speed. (Sept 14, 2008)	A young White Sea Cumber hiding behind what appears to be colonial tunicates. Same situation as the picture above and to the left. Quite common here. (Sept 14, 2008)

A close up of a Creeping Petal Sea Cucumber. ~ about 4 inches [10 cm] across. Note that it has one of its arms in its mouth. They "lick" of the food of their arms. One part I love about photography is seeing the animals you have pictures of that you did not see when taking the picture. In this image there are two baby hermit crabs and what could be a baby Sharp Nosed Crab. (Sept 14, 2008)	Blood Star ~ 8 inches [20 cm] across. Note the nudibranch below it. Common at this dive site. (April 5, 2009)

Green Sea Urchin ~ 3 inches [7.5 cm] in diameter. Note the larger Red Sea Urchin behind it. (April 5, 2009)	Orange Sea Cucmber ~ 12 inches [30 cm] in diameter. (April 5, 2009)

Sea Cucumber [juvenile] ~ 3 inches [7.5 cm] long. The adults are very common here. (April 5, 2009)	Striped Sunstar ~ 4 inches [10 cm] in diameter. The smallest I've ever seen. They can get up to 3 feet [1 m] in diameter. And until now the smallest I had seen was about a foot [30 cm] in diameter. (April 5, 2009)

Sunflower Star ~ 14 inches [35 cm] across the main mass here. Probably normal sized, but for some reason a few this day seemed to be curled up this way. Itchy? (April 5, 2009)	A video of an Orange Sea Cucumber feeding. Note how it basically sticks its fingers in its mouth to clean off the particles it has caught.

Striped Sun Star ~ 2 feet [60 cm] across. Not the usual orange coloured ones.


Sponge of some kind. Common enough here. (April 1, 2007)	Another kind of sponge. More rounded. Not in my books. (Sept 14, 2008)

The yellow tree like thing is a Northern Staghorn Bryozoan ~ about 5 inches [12.5 cm] across. (April 5, 2007)	Rosy Bryozoan ~ 8 inches [20 cm] across. Common at the wall at this dive site. They are the reddish coloured mass in the middle of this digital image.


Shiny Orange Sea Squirt ~ about 5 inches [12.5 cm] wide. (Sept 10, 2006)	Shiny Orange Sea Squirts and a Longfin Sculpin on the left (Sept 10, 2006)

Red Ascidians or Compound Tunicates? The orange blob structure.(April 5 2007)	Lobed Compound Tunicates surrounding Giant Acorn Barnacles (April 1, 2007)

Some type of Lobed Compound Tunicates. ~ 8 inches [20 cm] tall. (April 5, 2009)


Calcareous Tube Worms and a Sharp Nosed Crab (April 1, 2007)	Calcareous Tube Worms surrounded by Hairy Triton [a snail] eggs. (April 5, 2007) Note this is also my first picture of Pink Encrusting Hydrocorals.

Another close up of Calcareous Tube worms. ~ widest about 2 inches [5 cm] Its hard to get a picture of these feeding. They usually hide when they detect me which means pulling back into their calcified tubes.(Sept 14, 2008)	Spaghetti Worm, well at least its "tentacles". These actually belong to a worm that has most of its body hidden below the sand. (April 5, 2009)


Moss Crab [left], Sponge and White Sea Cucumber [right] (April 5, 2007)	A mixture of a few animals. Blood Starfish, Butterfly Crabs, and a Spiny Nosed Sculpin.(April 5, 2009)

Bull Kelp ~ 2 feet [60 cm] from the ball to the "stem" as it ends in the photo. But these plants grow well past 45 feet [15 metres]. (April 5, 2009)	Featherboa Kelp ~ about 18 inches [45 cm] worth in this image. They seem to get to be around 10 feet [3 m] in length from what I've seen. (April 5, 2009)

Sea Sacs ~ 5 inches [12.5 cm] tall. Common in the shallows closer to Spring Bay. Earlier in the season they are usually more green in color.	Sea Sacs ~ 5 inches [12.5 cm] tall. next to some Rock Weed[?]. An air sack at the top of the Sea Sac keeps them standing upright.

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