Lawrence Point

Lawrence Point marks the easternmost tip of Orcas Island, where extensive rocky structure meets the strong tide-driven flow of Rosario Strait. Vertical walls, sheer faces, boulders, and ledges dominate the underwater terrain, and the diveable range runs from 80 to 100 feet, with sheer wall dropping below safe recreational scuba limits. Visibility is typically 30 feet or more. The site is renowned among Northwest divers for its nudibranch community, with giant white dorids among the species documented on the wall.

Little terrestrial history attaches to the point beyond its role as the eastern navigational corner of Orcas Island. What makes the site distinctive is not the shore above it but the invertebrate community below: fringed tube worms and colonial tunicates encrust the wall, and aggregate green anemones sit just below the surf line where the rock breaks the surface.

The wall is a rocky reef biome from top to bottom; sheer faces, boulders, and ledges make up the whole structure, and no kelp forest is documented on the primary wall. Scuba is the sole activity, drawn by the wall's structure and the concentration of small invertebrate life along it. Currents at Lawrence Point are strong or unpredictable on ebb tides and even at predicted slack, and very strong tide rips run east of the point off-slack. Divers should work the wall only on flooding tides for the gentle, consistent flow it produces along the face.

Access is boat only; no shore route reaches the point. Divers drop 25 to 75 yards northwest of the point in a live-boat operation. The nearest boat launch is Washington Park in Anacortes, roughly 13 miles east, and charter boats out of Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes are how most divers reach the site. No site-specific marine protected area covers the water, so standard Marine Area 7 rules govern: rockfish retention is prohibited across Marine Areas 6 through 13, lingcod spearfishing runs May 21 to June 15 with a 36-inch maximum and a daily limit of 1 fish, and cabezon is open May 1 to November 30 at an 18-inch minimum with the same daily limit. WDFW enforces.