The Canyons

The Canyons is a large reef area with many canyon-like roads running through it, reached by boat and marked by a mooring buoy. Boats tie up to the buoy and divers descend at their leisure down the line. The dive ranges from beginner level in the 30 to 60 ft (9 to 18 m) range up to advanced on the deep walls.

The deep walls can go well over 100 ft (30 m) and carry cloud sponge and chimney sponge. Shine a light into the sponges to find shrimp, decorator crabs and other animals living inside. The reef is very large, so you can dive it many times in different directions from the buoy without crossing the same ground.

A pair of wolf eels lives on the reef not far from the descent line. Octopus are seen here, along with lots of ling cod, kelp greenling and rockfish. Shallower depths are covered in plumose anemones, many varieties of starfish are present and the bottom is crawling with brittle stars. There is a wide variety of nudibranchs, especially many giant dendronotids.