Howe Sound Boat Dive - 08/08/2010

A big day of diving this one.

I went out with the Topline boat in the morning for two dives, and stayed on for the afternoon doing two more dives.

The morning dive was with the IDC diving shop. I was diving with Steve Redding and Ivan. We had a pretty good day, but didn't have any special events happen. We were at Christie Islet and Pam Rocks. Steve hoped some seals would play with us, but no luck. On the second dive Steve and I had some fun playing practical jokes on each other underwater; putting starfish on people and turning people's lights off. It was fun.

The second set of dives I was with Vince. We went to a new site at south Pasley Island near Bowen Island. Being a new site, we had to do some exploring. There were two dive sites here. One to the left and one to the right. Vince and I found the one on the right, and it was a pretty nice wall between 50 and 80 feet. The other group was very shallow around 40 feet, but found four octopus which was kind of aggravating. Vince and I didn't seen anything much in terms of neat wildlife.

The next dive was to the Collingwood Day marker. Again and nice enjoyable dive. This is a good site. Nothing spectacular in terms of life, but nice rockfish and underwater topography.

At the end of the day, I was really feeling tired. A lot of diving will do that!

We finished off things at Ya Ya's in Horseshoe Bay with some nice food and chatting.

Whytecliff 05/08/2010

Just a quick skills dive with Vince. We went out and did a descent drill, shot a surface marker, ran off some line for reference, did valve drills, back finning, and s drills and some propulsion all while videoing each other.

I felt pretty good. I think I am feeling more ready to progress on to the technical diving that I have planned on.

At the end of the dive, I simulated an out of gas scenario and everything went well.

The video of me doing my valve drills is here http://vimeo.com/13947785 It's pretty boring though!

Whytecliff 01/08/2010

The next day I had a more aggressive dive planned with three other divers: Teri, Cedric and Anita (whom I had not met before). I brought my doubles and my scooter to get some practice with them. No one else had a scooter, but that was ok. I found on my dive at Tuwanek with Ivan that you can scooter with just one. You just end up going slower and staying with the group.

We started with the right side of the Cut around 80 feet. The cloud sponges were nice, and there were a lot of decorated warbonnets living in them. I found it very fun scootering up and down the line of other divers. Getting off the wall and looking at the entire group arrayed along the wall with light beams playing on the rock was very nice. A lot like space.

After a nice picnic lunch provided by Teri and Anita, we explored the Plumose garden. Anita found a giant pacific octopus under a rock. I startled a seal scootering around a rock corner. He was coming right at me, and got a good scare. I tried to follow him a bit but he was too fast even for a scooter.

At the end of the day, we finished off with a celebratory drink on the grass in the sun to commemorate Teri's 300th dive (albeit a bit belated).

Porteau Cove 31/07/2010

It had been a while since I had dove with Mihai, so I promised to go out to Whytecliff with him on Saturday. Nothing aggressive or fancy, just the left and right sides of the bay on single cylinders.

Both dives were nice but not spectacular. Visibility was ok, around 20 feet. No fauna of note other than some really nice pink and red anemones. We stayed at about 60 feet for both dives.

I put a starfish on Mihai's head as a joke, but with the thick hood he didn't notice. I needed a camera to capture the moment.