Weather stopped the planned dive of the HMCS Saskatchewan once again. We assembled early at Shaun's boat, but the gale and hurricane warnings north of Nanaimo were too worrying. We ended up going with our backup plan of Indian Arm. No one but me had dove there, so it was a good compromise. We headed for Crocker Island and the fishbowl that I had done before because I figured it was the best dive I knew up there.
It was a long boat ride from False Creek. Aboard were me, Patrick, Jason, Vince and Shaun. The weather was grey, but the sun came out periodically so it was pretty nice. We had a nice time chatting on the way up. At the fishbowl on the southern tip of Crocker Island, things didn't look so good! There was a lot of brown murky water in sharp contrast to the crystal clear visibility I had before. Jason, Vince and I decided to dive first and check it out. The brown layer was very short-lived, and the water cleared up nicely below 10 or 20 feet. This made for a very nice dive. We checked out the fishbowl, then went around the rock wall on the east side. The drop-off was impressive. Not much to see on the wall again, but there was an interesting colony of decorator crabs all in one spot. The rocks themselves were the most interesting. Very nice formations. At the end of the dive we messed around in a flatter area with boulders and anemones.
Shaun and Patrick dove next, as someone needed to stay on the boat. The sun came out again and illuminated the snow and tree covered peaks all around us. It was very pretty. At the end, everyone was impressed by the fishbowl. Some scenery pictures of the trip are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AntonNorth/ScubaIndianArmBoatTripScemeryMar2010#
We decided to try Racoon Island next, but not the west wall that I did before. We explored the north point instead. Vince and Shaun (Shaun was worried about the boat) decided to sit the dive out, and it was me and Jason and Patrick. It wasn't a bad dive. It was quite shallow, maybe 10-15 meters, and the brown water made visibility a bit poor. We also spent too much time in a large sandy area with no topography. There were a lot of rocky reefs, so it was certainly an interesting place if you stuck to those. There was also a spot with a lot of bottles scattered around. I wondered if someone's groceries had fallen over board. We also checked out a drop off that sloped off rapidly to nothing. It seemed like those were common in Indian Arm.
Back on the boat, it was raining so we packed up quickly and got under way. Again, a long ride back to False Creek, but we talked more and had a good time.
At the dock, I slipped and hurt my hand a bit. Completely an accident, but I figured I would be out of diving for a few days. That's why this isn't very long, I was typing with one hand!
Oh, and I did do four dives on the Saturday before this. I helped Jason out mapping a place called Copper Cove for his Dive Master course. Patrick was along too. Copper Cove was nice. Just had to make sure to stay around 16 to 20 meters, and keep around the point on the left. The middle of the bay is flat uninteresting sand! We spent a lot of time there though mapping the depths. It was one of the hardest working dives I'd been on as you had to count kick cycles for 10 meters, and do 20 of those, so 200 meters of swimming at a time. We ended up doing 3 depths, so that was 600 meters. I much preferred regular take-your-time diving!
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