Halibut Point is one of my favorite dive sites in Cape Ann. The dive involves declining big boulders leading to muddy bottom at ~65-70 feet. There is always some cool marine life, regulars, cunner are schooling pollocks, always cool to see searaven and sculpin, or good surprises like ocean pout or goosefish. It is an awesome lobstering site ( I could get one today even with the late season), and good site to observe some invertebrates like frilled and northern red anemone and scarlet psollus, if you are lucky to dive at lunch time.
The topography is always very cool, the big boulders providing a lot of crevices (lobsters!) going down to gravelly and then muddy bottom. Below 45-50 feet it becomes really spooky due to low light and dusty environment. Which makes it a good option on a Halloween day.
We hit the site at around low tide. Low tide is not much of an issue at Halibut since we figured out a safe way to enter the water. After a few gear problems, all got fixed, we finally started our dive.
The dive was pretty awesome. Before we hit the spooky bottom we came across a really big short-horn sculpin. It was fairly cooperative with my camera, I could get some frames of his nice dome-like eyes.
We were lucky that it was lunch time that we saw plenty scarlet psolus and one northern red anemone. It is always a delight to see those. The mud bottom looks so mysterious to me and I always want to swim beyond and explore further because it always makes me think that there must be something really cool hiding around. One day I will find a wolffish sitting there, waiting for me! This time it was only a field of northern cerianthids and surprisingly a pipefish!
It was a really good dive with all the cool finds and schooling pollocks at Halibut Point before the weather got cold. I am happy that winds finally cooperated and allowed us to dive in one of our favorite sites.
66ft, 62 min, 50F, 15-20 ft
