Seven Tree Island

Seven Tree Island - named with the local gift for understatement, its crown carrying roughly that many stunted conifers - offers Browning Pass's abundance at a slightly gentler pitch than the famous wall across the channel. Boulder gardens and stepped faces wear the same upholstery of plumose anemones and soft coral, but the terrain creates pockets: swim around a corner and find a Puget Sound king crab armored in orange and purple, a wolf eel's pale face in a den, or an octopus's midden of crab shells announcing the tenant. Kelp greenling and black rockfish supervise. It is the site guides pick for a first God's Pocket dive, and nobody feels shortchanged.

اللحظة التي جئت من أجلها: Boulder-garden dens, king crabs in parade colors, a kinder introduction to Browning Pass

التضاريس: Sloping walls and boulder gardens off a treed islet in Browning Pass

التيار: More forgiving than Browning Wall but still planned around the tide tables.

المخاطر: Current away from slack; cold-water workload.