After the Rescue Diver course, I thought it would be a good idea to go for a fun dive without having to work so hard. That and my dive buddy Mihai was up in Tuwanek for two days, so I thought to join up with him there on Sunday.
I planned to take the 7:20am ferry, believing that people would want to get going early. I was wrong! I got up at 5am, and was in Sechelt by about 8:30am. No one was awake! So I spent an hour having a coffee and exploring Sechelt a bit. The ferry ride over had been very rough. Strong winds and cold air made for a rough passage. I went up on deck briefly to check things out, and got a bit worried! Thankfully it calmed down, and the sun was out all day. It was still pretty cold. Sechelt is a nice little town on the water. I spent some time walking on the beach with the surf, and watching the sun on the water. I didn't spend too much time out though, since the wind was still very brisk.
I met up with Mihai and Christina at the UpperDeck guesthouse in Sechelt, along with their other dive buddies. There were originally 5 or 6, but by the time Sunday rolled around, only 3 remained. Of those 3, only one would dive with us on Sunday. They had some poor dives the day before, and did not sleep the greatest. I was rested and raring to go, though! Poor Mihai had vehicle problems, and didn't sleep well either, so was in rough shape. He still stuck with it and did the two dives though, so good for him.
After some more coffee and breakfast for the late-risers, we made it out to the dive site. It really was a very nice day. The water wasn't moving too much, and the visibility looked great. We geared up and decided to dive the north island first, and try and find the wolf eels that I had seen the last trip.
It was a nice relaxing dive, this one. A lot more relaxing than the trip with IDC, but I'm sure that had a lot to do without being in a group of 8! I really wanted to get to where the wolf eels were, so was moving quickly. But the other two were going pretty slow, so I decided to just relax and do that too. There were big schools of shiner perch, and a lot of boot/chimney sponges. Lots of blackeyed gobies too, and tonnes of painted greenlings (convict fish). There was also a really awesome longhorn decorator crab that I came across on the way back. Beside this north island there was also quite a bit of bull kelp. It was smaller than the stuff I saw near Port Hardy, but I still found it cool. I can't believe how strong it is. There was no sign of the wolf eels, but that's mostly because I couldn't find their den. I found several vertical cracks at the right depth, but none of them were big enough to hold them. I don't think we went far enough, but that's ok. There were a couple of really neat chitons on the way, as well as a pretty big ling cod hiding in some kelp. He got scared and swam away very quickly. Once we surfaced, using a strand of bull kelp for a reference line, we were treated to a seal swimming on the surface. He was pretty far away, and even though we tried to call to him, he wasn't interested. He did look our way, but must have had better things to do. Mihai had some problems with his dive computer, so for the next dive we planned it using tables. The swim back to shore was pretty long and cold! But we made it.
The other group of divers decided to pack it in. So Mihai and I were left on our own for the second dive, with Christina trying to keep warm in the sun. She had forgotten her warm ski pants, so was also chilled. There was a lot of that going on today!
For our second dive, we wanted to be conservative, so we decided to stay shallow and go to the southern island along the bottom. The surface water was surprisingly cold, something like 5-6 degrees. There was also a lot of fresh water mixing near the surface making for a pretty interesting halocline. This dive turned out to be very good. Once we descended and made it to the side of the island, it was like a big aquarium. The light was streaming in from above, the visibility was great, and there were tonnes of fish swimming about the rocks and along the wall. It was really cool. There were a lot of striped seaperch. I also recovered some treasure: a CD by Zamfir and a boat light. There was a star fish re-growing from one arm, or a star fish who lost all but one arm, take your pick. Again, tonnes of painted greenlings. We continued along the island wall and ended up swimming along barren rock. We should have hung out in the previous part, since it was pretty uninteresting farther on. We turned back, and spent the rest of the dive coming up the bottom contour to the beach. There was a lot of sea grass there, but the bottom was pretty sandy and muddy. Not uninteresting though. The sun coming in from above made everything bright and different.
So, we ended there packing up quickly and meeting the others in a small bakery called Wheatberries back in Sechelt. I showed off my treasure finds, had another coffee (lots of coffee today, that was an early morning!) and made it onto the four thirty ferry. I'm sure I'll be back!
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