Port Hardy – Browning Pass Hideaway, Easter 2010

I had been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. A combination birthday present and reward for finishing the GUE Fundamentals course, along with some decompression time in the wilderness away from technology. I had been to the Hideaway in November, and seriously couldn't wait to go back. John deBoeck was an amazing guide to the dives of the area that Jaques Coustea said were his second favorite in the world.

Originally I had planned to dive double cylinders but that fell through with my injured fingers. Instead, I split my cylinders in half and was able to dive a single steel 130. The other I lent to my dive buddy Jason so that we'd have identical amounts of gas. 130's also allowed us to have some pretty long dives, and not be limited by our air consumption which was a real issue for me and such nice dives. I wanted to be limited by my no decompression limits or how cold I was, not by my gas!

The trip started on Friday very very early. I got up at 3:30am in order to make the meeting time of 5am at the shop. The night before I had brought over my gear and cylinders so that was taken care of. I got a bit nervous when I found out that 9 people were going in the van. I was very concerned that we'd not all fit! It turned out to be a non-issue, but it did lead to some stress that morning.

The van was cramped but it wasn't too bad. On board were Kyle, Genessa, Erika, Scott, Joe, Jason, Vince, Greg and me. It was a rainy and miserable morning when we made it to the ferry terminal. It was a good thing we took the early ferry as the winds were gusting a great deal and the waves were very high. The crossing to Nanaimo was rougher than I'd even seen it with the ferry rocking to and fro alarmingly. It was difficult to walk and to stand, and at one point a big wave caused a large amount of dishes to crash in the kitchen. The seas were so bad that the other ferries for that day were cancelled. That's why we were lucky to get on this one!

In Nanaimo there were numerous power lines down as well as trees. It was quite the storm, but we were very glad to have made it when we did.

The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful. Just a lot of rain and wind and difficult winding road driving. Kyle drove the van but wasn't able to change drivers because it was the Shop van. We did our best to keep him awake even though many of the folks slept on the trip. There was one close call while passing a slow vehicle. There turned out to be an oncoming car a lot closer than Kyle realized. We made it, but it was a bit scary! We did grill him for quite a while after that. Erika nearly had a heart attack.

We made it in to Port Hardy on time around 1pm, but John and his boat were not there. It turned out that he was stuck weathering out the high seas that were going on at that time. So, we had some lunch at the Quarterdeck Inn and just tried to unwind after the long drive. We had a good time getting to know each other, too. Allison and her son Nigel met us there, so our full complement was ready to go.

John made it through a break in the weather, and his previous guests unloaded and got underway. Then it was our turn. We got things loaded pretty quickly, but ended up waiting again since he had to go grocery shopping. I didn't complain because I wanted to eat while I was out there!

Around 5 or so we were on the boat, got fuel, picked up the skiff and the handy man Paul, and were finally on our way. Poor Allison was prone to seasickness, so she had to sit outside the whole trip in the rain. It was a rough ride. Not as rough as it was, but still bumpy and windy. John seemed kind of subdued, but I suspected it was due to the stress of the previous trip and probably lack of sleep.

We made it in to the Hideaway around 7 and the plan was to get in a dive then have dinner. We geared up quickly and headed out to Hideaway Island. However, there were gear issues that would plague us for the rest of the trip. Not me, but Kyle's neck seal was too small, Joe's glove leaked, Jason's gloves leaked, Kyle's computer crapped out, Erika had to replace an O-ring, Scott's drysuit dump valve stuck open amongst other things.

The dive site was not far away, and I hadn't dove the site before. Well, it turned out that I had after I went back and looked at my logs (so many dives close together really blur in my memory)! It was a fairly challenging due to the surging seas. Even at 15 to 20m depth, the water would push you forward then suck you back. In between surges, you could propel yourself where you needed to go, but you had to be pretty careful with your buoyancy otherwise you'd crash into the bottom or other things. I don't recall too much about this dive other than the surge, but it certainly was interesting. I'd never been in conditions like it before.

We had a hearty dinner made by the cook Debbie, and turned in for the evening. The plan was to get up very early and try to make up some dive time. Unfortunately, due to compressor problems and the gear issues, we'd only get four dives done that day. We started out in the Nursery where we had more fun with surge. It wasn't too far from the entrance to Clam Cove and the Hideaway. There were a lot of interesting rock formations here, covered with kelp fronds. There was something of a wall when we first descended, but we had to stay on the inside of the island due to current so we didn't have a chance to explore that on the outside. The white sand was piled up very steeply next to this wall so we didn't spend much time deep. The rest of the dive was spent around 10m puttering around the rocks and kelp. The sun was streaming down from above so that made it very bright and pretty.

The Rock of Life was next and Jason was particularly awed by it. There was just so much life to see. We saw two opalescent nudibranchs on that dive, along with a lot of basket stars and a huge puget sound king crab who had two big brown box crabs as neighbours. After lunch, Eagle Rock was next. Vince ended up somehow going so far that he ended up at the Snowfall dive site. He also appeared to get stuck in the thick kelp, and Kyle went in to rescue him. In reality, he was ok, but better safe than sorry. Rounding off the day was the famous Browning Wall dive. It was awesome, but very challenging with all the surge and current. I found you'd get pushed into the wall very easily and it was difficult to push away without harming any of the life encrusting it. A good back kick was very useful. Unfortunately I didn't have a good one yet! But the practice was nice. When I did need to push off, I'd use one finger and carefully pick a small exposed bit of rock.

With the issues and weather during the day, we decided to call it a day, get some sleep and get up early again. I took the opportunity to have a nice hot shower and a shave. Erika logged all the species she saw every dive for the Reef project. She was up late every night doing that because there was just so much to see. Paul the handy man battled with toilets and plumbing all day. He also did a great roast on the barbecue. The Easter Bunny came that evening, with chocolate eggs waiting inside for people, and eggs hidden outside as well. With the blowing wind that night, I was afraid he'd have some problems, but the eggs stayed in place.

The next morning found us on Browning Wall again, and it was equally as challenging as the previous day. There was what looked to be a puget sound king crab in a crack, but it turned out to be a hairy-spined crab. Its claws looked very similar, but the crack was too flat for the big tank-like puget sound king crab. We also saw a cool grunt sculpin. Three of us squeezed in a short dive after that before lunch inside Hideaway Island. It was a very nice sheltered bay, with a flat sandy bottom and a small rock wall. We saw a huge red irish lord, a big orange-peel nudibranch, and a smoothhead sculpin. The sculpin was lying on top of a pile of black muscle shells, and it was so well camouflaged that at first I could only see a disembodied fish head. Upon surfacing, Scott spotted an otter/mink looking thing scampering on the rocks above us, and looking curious. John figured it was a mink when we asked about it.

After that, we did Seven Tree Island. As we left, Vince forgot his hood so we had a delay while we went back. A good reminder to always keep one's gear on the boat! On that dive, everyone but Erika and Joe missed the giant pacific octopus hiding under the kelp at the beginning of the dive. I lost a double-ended bolt snap, but Genessa found it shining on the sand. The end of that dive was like being in the tropics with a vast stretch of white sand.

We got in another fast dive inside Hideaway Island after that. John got his anchor snagged, so Vince went down to free it. When he started to take too long, I went in to assist too. We got the anchor back up and it was pretty fun. Later I'd count this as a dive, because according to Paul, in the WRSTC (World Recreational Scuba Training Council) a dive with a purpose doesn't have to have any set length. We did the Rock of Life again to round out the, which made Jason happy. We skipped the night dive because it was just a bit too late and not a lot of folks were interested. It didn't seem worth it to bust our backs getting fills done and popping out for such a short time. Showering and sleeping turned out to be a better choice.

On the final day, we got up early yet again to do Browning Wall one last time before packing up. This time my back kick was a lot better and I never pushed off the wall once. However, there were some problems on the dive. Scott lost his mask, and Nigel went down too quickly to get it. This resulted in a mask squeeze and him getting a pretty bad bloody nose. Scott also lost his camera and went down with Erika to find it. Unfortunately they got separated and Scott went a lot deeper than he should have. Erika had found the camera almost immediately. A good lesson in keeping close to your buddy. There was also an issue in that he came close to exceeding the maximum operating depth of the nitrox he was breathing. However, everything ended alright thankfully and some lessons were learned.

It was a fabulous sunny day and we got packed up and underway without much incident. On many of the dives, the bull kelp provided convenient ascent and descent reference points. Also, old growth kelp with its short strong stalk helped us keep position on shallow safety stops in strong wave action near rocks. It was funny that there were no jelly fish at all, though. I think John said that they were between seasons. I also remember seeing a smooth velvet snail just after seeing it in the marine life book. It was pretty lucky, otherwise I would have had no idea what it was.

Once back on the road, there were no other problems. The drive back was a bit better than the drive up, but there were still some bad rainy spots and wind. We made the 6 o'clock ferry, and everyone was back in Vancouver by 8pm! I couldn't wait to go back...

Here is a list of the species I remember seeing:

old growth kelp

bull kelp

blue branching seaweed

cloud sponge

glove sponge

giant plumose anemone

white-spotted rose anemone

green surf anemone

strawberry anemone

orange zoanthid

tan cup coral

red soft coral

orange sea pen

pink gorgonian

whie hydroid

giant pacific chiton

smooth pink scallop

giant rock scallop

leafy hornmouth

smooth velvet snail

noble sea lemon

monterey sea lemon

white nudibranch

heath's dorid

yellow-rimmed nudibranch

white-rimmed nudibranch

Hudson's dorid

Cooper's dorid

diamondback nudibranch

orange-peel nudibranch

frosted nudibranch

opalescent nudibranch

opalescent squid

graceful kelp crab

helmet crab

graceful decorator crab

longhorn decorator crab

hairy-spined crab

rhinoceros crab

heart crab

puget sound king crab

brown box crab

giant acorn barnacle

basket star

red sea cucumber

giant sea cucumber

broadbase tunicate

pacific sea peach

blackeye goby

mosshead warbonnet

decorated warbonnet

china rockfish

blue rockfish

black rockfish

kelp greenling

painted greenling

smoothhead sculpin

red irish lord

grunt sculpin

Next weekend would be Dodd Narrows, a very fast and extreme drift dive! I should have some photos and video from the folks who had underwater cameras soon too. You can check here as I continue to upload that. Right now, it's just a few pictures from my own camera.

http://picasaweb.google.com/AntonNorth/ScubaPortHardyEaster2010#