Waddington Channel

Waddington Channel was an exploratory dive that did not make the recommended list.

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There is a narrow channel that runs between West and East Redonda Islands. At the northern entrance, there's a beacon on the West Redonda Side. We dove right below the beacon. 

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The wall drops to 50m/165ft, with interesting topography including rubble piles, cracks and crevices, sheer drops, and overhangs. 

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From starting at 10m/30ft, colonies of orange zoanthids line the walls and overhangs. Plumose anemones, blood stars, cookie cutter stars, decorator crabs, giant nudibranchs, hairy lithode crabs, and Puget Sound king crabs were scattered amongst the wall. Giant Pacific octopus were found by a few buddy teams. 

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An interesting find was clusters of rare pink branching hydrocorals. These are found in high current areas attached to walls, and can be found in Skookumchuk Narrows and Weynton Passage. We found them in clusters between sharp-lipped boot sponges and plumose anemones. Upon further research, this species was logged in the exact same location in 1976 by Philip Lambert. 

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Large cloud sponges were found below 30m/100ft. Tiger and quillback rockfish were found amongst the sponges. 

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Overall, it was an interesting dive with a wide variety of life and noteworthy species. We would potentially return to this site. 

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Dives need to be planned on slack tide in Waddington Channel.

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