Near the bottom of the ramp at Clover Point people are surprised by what they’re finding among the rocks. A face has been carved in one the large stones.

“It’s wonderful” says a woman smiling back at it. “It’s a nice surprise.”

Everyone we spoke with wondered who did it and why. All agreed it was a mystery.

“Down here. Look,” another woman points to more carvings on the other side of the ramp. “They’re all along here!” She peers at a squid, a couple more faces, and a bird. “They’re really gorgeous,”

The man next to her notices a name carved above one of the creatures – Larry Dennis.

“I used to teach a Larry Dennis.”

But he says his student wasn’t an artist; he was an athlete. “Have you ever seen it on YouTube?”

He directs us to a 2012 video that shows ‘his’ Larry Dennis kitesurfing a couple kilometres away at Ogden Point. You realize why it went viral when Dennis starts speeding toward the rocks, launches into the air, and flies over the concrete breakwater. His accompanying screams transform from surprise to exhilaration.

Could this be who we’re looking for?

“There could be two Larry Dennises!” the former teacher laughs.

I contacted as many of them as I could find and the next day received a call back from the kitesurfer. “I’m the guy!”

Dennis says it’s his name on the rock, but he didn’t write it, or carve the bird below it. The man who did the carvings, Dennis says, created the art after seeing him kitesurf.

“He says, ‘I’m carving an eagle with your name on it because you soar with the eagles,’” Larry recalls with a laugh. “I thought it was one of the coolest things ever!”

And what was it like to soar like an eagle in that don’t-try-this-at-home video?

“Once you’re over it, it’s all calm,” Dennis says. “There’s no waves. It’s peaceful. You’re up in the air and there’s no sound.”

Dennis is set to paddleboard when we meet. He says it’s just as rewarding as kitesurfng because it changes your perspective and appreciation of your surroundings. “You realize how much you don’t really notice,” he explains. “Just the wildlife, the people.”

One of those people is Ray Boudreau. Dennis says he’s the local artist responsible for the carvings. Boudreau texts me later, saying he hopes his carvings will “surprise people passing” and they might “wonder if their eyes were throwing a party for their face.”

Which brings us back to that first face we noticed smiling from the rock. Ray says that wasn't him.

At least one mystery remains.