I was very excited about these two days of diving at Porteau Cove after experiencing how great this dive site was the previous week with Lyenne. Also, with these four dives it would push me to my 20 dive mark. Not bad for getting certified at the end of July! 20 dives was a bit of a milestone for me, since I set that as a goal to complete before my Advanced Open water course started this week. I can't wait to increase my depth limits as that will mean that the Nakayama wreck at Porteau will be in my reach.
Saturday morning couldn't have been better. The marine forecast was clear, and the day was fairly sunny. At times it would threaten rain, but that never materialized. You could see it raining across Howe Sound though which was cool. It was very windy though.
My dive buddy was Gosia, and she was kind enough to give me a lift. We picked up gear (I still didn't have my new drysuit yet, blah!) at IDC at 10, and were out at Porteau for 11 or so. There were a fair number of other divers there, but we found several picnic tables free so it was far from full. We geared up very quickly, even though Gosia hadn't got a lot of practice lately. We were on a mission today because we had to get back to IDC so that I could get cylinder fills for the next day's dive. In the end, I was very happy at how smoothly things went. We went fast, but it didn't feel like rushing either so that was great. I still remember all the instructors stressing the “relax” part during my course, but you can't relax too much or you don't get anywhere! It's totally possible to go to IDC at 10 and be back well before 6 and still have two dives.
Gosia was diving with a wetsuit, and forgot her towel. I forgot a towel, too. It's the first time I've forgotten anything. I can't believe it either, because I'm a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan and the one thing you learn from those books is to always know where your towel is! Good thing there were no hideous Bug Bladder Beasts of Trall to be found on the dives.
We started our first dive at 12:30, and the tide was almost fully out. It was kind of nice because it cut down on the surface swim by at least 40 metres because you could walk instead. Gosia got to try out her new pink fins, mask and snorkel set. It was sure distinctive. There was a bit of confusion on the swim out to the marker buoy though, so make sure you both are clear on which buoy you are swimming for!
Our descent on the first dive was a little problematic. I must not have gotten all the air out of my BCD as I had some trouble sinking, but only briefly. I suspect there may have been an up-welling or some kind of current maybe too. We hit the bottom without too much incident. The plan was to head west around the artificial reefs and curve to the Grant Hall wreck. Unfortunately, yet again I missed the navigation and ended up putting us across a sandy wasteland for a good while. I think the current was pushing us to the east, because we ended up running into the Grant Hall the same as happened on my first dive at Porteau. It was not a big deal though. From there, we came around the stern and up the starboard side past the toilet. There was a fair amount of fighting with the currents on this dive. There were many huge ling cod, more than 5 at least all hanging out around the jungle gym area. I was looking for the octopus again, but had no luck. The visibility was pretty good too, maybe 15 feet. It was a fairly long dive at about 45 minutes, and we swam along the bottom a fair ways back to shore first. Gosia got very cold. On the surface, she said she had some trouble feeling her hands. I can't understand people who want to dive in wetsuits when drysuits are just not all that complicated and a lot warmer! Oh well :-)
Back on shore, Gosia tried to warm up by sitting in the car. The wind was pretty bad too, but the sun was out. We ate something and swapped out cylinders and were back in the water and descending after only an hour and twenty minutes. Gosia was a real trooper :-) On the second dive, the tide was coming back in so it made the surface swim a bit harder. We descended at the same closest middle marker buoy and this time found the reef as intended. We went around the sailboat, around the Grant Hall, and then up and over the top deck. Shining my light into the depths of the hold was very cool Nothing looked to live in there at all, just a lot of sediment and darkness. Does that bode ill for my future experiences with wreck diving? Time will tell I guess! It's going to be a challenge for sure.
Since I waited so long to do this dive log, I've forgotten a lot of what I saw on that second dive. There was certainly one massive ling cod that I got close to, and I remember looking at its teeth and mouth. It was at least half a foot wide. Alan would later tell us that he got nipped by a ling cod when they were guarding their egg masses.
We cut short the second dive a bit because I noticed Gosia was freezing again. The surface swim back was a lot nicer this time as we were being helped by the tide. My friend Lyenne had mentioned she might come out on a motorcycle ride that day. When we were just exiting the water, I noticed someone on the rocks with a camera. I thought to myself “wouldn't that be funny if that was Lyenne?”. My eyes are pretty good, and getting a bit closer showed me that I was right. It was very lucky her showing up right at the time we were coming out, and she said she got some good pictures with her telephoto lens. It was quite a nice surprise to have her stop by! It's too bad she wasn't able to dive that day. We didn't have much time to talk either as rain was threatening, and I had to get back to the shop. So we said our goodbyes, Gosia and I geared down, rinsed off, and got back to the shop in plenty of time.
The second day's dive was with Jason Kolba. He was nice enough to pick me up at my place, where I had stored my cylinders and gear down in the underground garage. Quite handy. We had a good drive out to Porteau Cove, and the day again was awesome. Even nicer than the previous day. There were some wind warnings for Howe Sound though, but I found there to be less wind than the previous day. There were a lot more divers out though. The parking lot wasn't that full, but there were several large groups of divers from various diving clubs there. Nobody from IDC that I could see however.
For both the day before and this day I had started to use seal-saver on my drysuit neck seal. The last Porteau dive I was on I got some severe chaffing on my neck. So much so that it looked like I had tried to hang myself, hah. The seal-saver helped, but what helped the most was not turning my head so much. I've learned a valuable lesson in that. Turn my body more, and not my neck! It doesn't' help that there is so much to see at Porteau Cove! I still need to find out something else to lubricate my neck area though that won't get rubbed off and is good for latex.
We met a guy from one of the other dive clubs in the parking lot named Homie. He was in high spirits for the day's dives. We talked a bit about the octopus that we were going to look for, but in the end started gearing up fairly quickly so we could get out and do just that. Several other divers mentioned they had seen at least two octopus out that day. The tide was out again, so we had a break on the surface swim. It was still pretty long though.
Descending at the middle closest marker buoy, we headed west for the artificial reef. We hit it ok, and Jason was leading. He was pretty fast. I noticed he finned quite a bit, and left me in the dust often. I was wondering what his hurry was! I figured he was excited about looking for the octopus. We poked around the jungle gym and looked in one of the suspected lairs. No one was home. We then checked out the hull of the Grant Hall as someone mentioned one octopus under there beside the toilet. No luck there either. We did find one of them in the jungle gym area though wedged way back in a crack. It was hard to see, but at least he was there. Probably trying to hide from all the prying eyes.
We ran into several large groups of divers out training. No problems though, we just avoided them. We saw a bunch of the huge ling cods which Jason dubbed “the Codfathers”, as well as a very large kelp greenling. We also found out that the female kelp greenling was the orange and gold fish we had been trying to identify for a while. So much for the “green” in “greenling”! There was also one very large, and very dead looking sea blubber at the stern of the Grant Hall. We saw lots of the coonstripe shrimp on the bottom, as well as a rock scallop and dungeness crab. There were a bunch of the longhorn decorator crabs, as well as one of the slender decorator crab (it was very mossy). I finally found a chiton, which was a lot smaller than I had realized. This one was a bright turquoise blue. Another high-light were huge schools of pipe-fish. They were very small, but reflected the light very nicely. Visibility was pretty good, maybe 15 feet. However, the currents felt a bit odd and they pushed me around a fair bit. But it wasn't too bad.
I did better on air than Jason did, and we talked about that on the swim back. I mentioned he was finning a lot, and that that was probably what it was. He also found that the straps on his Halcyon BCD were loosening, a problem he had noticed the previous week. We checked it out on shore, and sure enough, the webbing had loosened right up. He decided to have them look at it back at the shop later. All we could do was tighten it up and hope for the best.
It was a fabulous sunny day, and I had some fun chatting with some new divers out in the sun. There wouldn't be many days left where you could just sit and work on your tan. One person was having a lot of problems with their weight. I hope they sorted it in the end.
By the time of our second dive, the tide was coming back in. Also, there were a lot of groups out in the water, so it became quite a traffic jam down there. I remember ascending out of the way of one big group, sailing over top of them, and giving the ok signal to their grateful dive guide. I don't think the people in the group even saw me! It's getting kind of fun to do things in the water as I get better with buoyancy. Jason and I had fun swimming between the girders in the jungle gym too. We paid a visit to our octopus friend who was still sleeping, and just puttered around a bit. When we surfaced, we followed a line up to a buoy and were surprised to see our location. What we had thought was the buoy for the Grant Hall was the one we came up at. We both agreed we'd need to look into that, because we were sure that the dive map clearly showed something different. I also had my first problem equalizing my ears. It wasn't too uncomfortable, but there definitely was pressure building. I stopped and ascended a bit, kept swallowing and stretching my neck and with a small pop it cleared. I also got a bit of vertigo during this, but handled it ok. It was nice to experience this, since I hadn't before.
It was a very pleasant rinse and gear-down in the sun. I also handled a pretty neat little underwater camera from Sea Life. It may be exactly what I was looking for. Not very big, no housing required, inexpensive and easily stow-able in a pocket. Granted it won't take the best pictures without a strobe, but it had a video mode, and for the pictures I'd just want them initially to record what I see, not for National Geographic quality shots. Besides, huge cameras have always turned me off a bit, because I end up leaving them behind. I'll definitely check it out. When we were leaving, Jason and I were talking about air consumption and realized that I should have led on the second dive. That way we could see if it was because of his increased finning that was impacting his air usage. Too bad we didn't think of that this time. Next time though!
All in all, a great set of four dives. Now the advanced course starts. After that, I have a boat dive planned and hopefully I'll have my new dry-suit. Also, I will have my new Saanti undergarment too soon. Can't wait to do some diving during the winter!
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