Diving Day Island Wall...

If you like diving deep vertical sandstone faces and find frequent encounters with large adult Wolf-Eel, and the mighty GPO, exhilarating - then this is the site for you. There are few dive sites around that offer as many opportunities to see and to engage with these bad-boys of temperate waters as you might find here at Day Island. The wall's close proximity to the Narrows Passage cause it to be exceptionally sensitive to tidal exchanges and currents, making it a dive to plan very carefully. Especially when your entry and exit points are from the Day Island shore. Which was our dive plan today. From shore, at slack, on a weak exchange. One of the best days of the year to dive this site.

Perfect conditions call for one thing, and that's ... Murphy. Someone has to invite that creep every time, and he can't ever just sit on his hands and keep out of trouble. Nope, being the little klepto that Murphy tends to be something's going to come up missing. This time around it was Chip W. who was pinched. We intended to splash the wall a trio... Mike H. ("Holy Diver"), Chip W., and myself... but, when we found out that Chip's dry gloves had been made off with (a.k.a. "left at home")- the math made it two.

Being that Mike has a coming role to play in a desert theatre, and oasis diving sucks, it was good to get in a favorite Sound dive before the call of duty. It'd been early February since we'd last buddy'd up anyway, so we were due a dive.

We made our way down the steep grade to the shoreline and bumped into a group of four who had just finished their dive. They were all still rapping about their time with the wolf-eels and at least one of them figured we'd be heading that way ourselves soon enough so she offered up her remaining supply of herring. A favorite meal of the wolf-eel, we took her up on the offer and kicked out on a surface swim with a handful apiece. The hotdogs we'd already tucked away in our pockets were now to be the second-course.

After agreeing to the descent, we took a West heading to the top of the wall and then finished our descent down to the bottom shelf, at nearly 90'. From there we took a South heading and made a point to check out every nook and cranny along the way. Of which the swift currents here have carved out plenty over time. We methodically searched all of those in our path until we came across our target. A large adult Wolf-Eel - who appeared to be hungry.

The goal here is not just to feed, but to entice these guys out of their dens with the promise of food. In some cases you can't tempt them enough... food, or no. Luckily, today was not one of those days. The big guy we came across was more than willing to lunge himself out of his den and chomp after the tasty treats we offered up. Mike was first on the bait, while I stayed nearby to capture the encounter on camera. He spent a few minutes in the "lure and pet, lure and pet" mode, before I took up a position where I could do the same. I spent a few minutes feeding the big guy before repositioning with the camera above the action. I was there only a short time before I felt a nudge come from something behind me. I turned to find that it was this guys little lady paying us a visit. She didn't seem to be interested in joining the feast and fun but rather strolled into a den on the shelf above. I flashed her presence to Mike as she made her way up the wall, and then let him know that I was nearing a point where our dive should turn. We spent a few more minutes there with the male before making our way up the wall and aiming for shore. Great stuff!!

Check out the short clip of Mike's feeding, playing, and petting of the Wolf-Eel.





Dive Buddy Group: Mike Heilig, and almost Chip... but no Chip. (89fsw for 40mins)