As the day wound down, it looked to be a perfect night for this dive. A far cry from the week before, where it seemed a miniature typhoon was lashing Whytecliff! There was half a full moon, the sky was almost clear (there was a thin layer of hazy cloud), and the air temperature was relatively warm. Best of all, no rain!
We got started a bit later than the planned 7pm, but it was not a big deal. The drive out to Whytecliff was pleasant, and there was some good conversation. Arriving at the park, we discovered even though it was a great evening, no one else was out. Not surprising for a weekday night I suppose. But that just meant we had the place to ourselves. One surprise was that all the picnic tables were gone, and the washroom was closed. It's too bad, since the tables made gearing up and down a lot easier. It wasn't a show-stopper though, since we had the tailgate of Mihai's truck.
Since it was such a nice night, we didn't go down to check the water conditions and just started to get ready. It sure was dark! There were no lights in the parking lot, so I'm glad I was familiar with putting together things by feel. We had flashlights, but it was good practice to be very familiar with your gear.
Our plan was to just follow the right hand rock wall of the bay out and around the day-marker, then turn around at about 1500psi. I would lead the dive, but we decided to do a side-by side grouping instead of single file. That would make it easier to communicate and to point out things of interest. I ended up using my compass a lot on this dive!
The tide looked to be just right, and I believe it was going out. However, it didn't appear to be doing anything violent that would hinder our progress. When I first saw the water, it looked very clear. When we got in, however, the visibility was actually quite poor. There must have been a lot of particulate matter left over from the heavy rains that we'd been having. I made a mistake and forgot to inflate my BCD before I got in the water and got a bit of a surprise when I submerged briefly trying to put my fins on. Whoops! That was quickly fixed though, and a good lesson.
Mihai and I swam out a ways along the right hand rock wall and then descended. You could really tell how bad the visibility was, that's for sure. Some of the first things we saw were some very large dock shrimp, with very reflective eyes. They were scattered all over, and it was eerie the way their eyes glowed on the bottom. They were also pretty unafraid, standing their ground when you got very close to them like little bull-dogs. There were the usual vast assortment of sea-stars, and we soon got out to the day-marker and the fields of white plumose anemones emerged from the gloom. It was very cool. From that point on, we had some help in the form of the current. It pushed us along on a very nice and relaxing drift dive. It was a lot like flying through the night. There were some fish out, but not as many as I would have thought. Maybe I just wasn't seeing them though. Some of the coolest ones were large schools of shiner perch, which were about loonie-size and silver. They were huddling on the bottom in large groups, and reflected like silver dollars in our lights. Mihai said that several of them in their attempts to escape when we got close crashed into rocks behind them. I guess they were sleepy! The highlight were some small baby squid. We came across them on the way back, and I'd never seen one before. It was quite small and transparent.
I turned us back earlier than what we agreed because I knew that swimming against the current would use up our air faster. But, it was not too bad. We ended up getting back around the point, into the bay and following the bottom all the way up to shore with plenty left. On the way in, we both noticed a shining circular light on the surface of the water. At first I thought it was the moon, but then I realized that we were right beside the rock wall, and that Mihai's wife must be up there with her flashlight. She told us later that that was right, and that she didn't think we'd see it at all. It was certainly a cool effect to see underwater. It was like a floating disc of silver.
We hung out in the parking lot a bit afterwards with some tea after getting things packed up, but didn't stay long. It was getting late, and it was also getting cold! We talked a bit about the squid and the fish, and how nice the moon was. On the whole, a very nice dive. So, we decided to plan it again for the next Thursday.
Tomorrow will be a boat dive in Howe Sound with the Sea Dragon. I'm looking forward to it!
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