Thursday, February 17, 2011

Nanaimo Wrecks 30/01/2011

It had been a long time since I had dove the wrecks outside of Nanaimo. When Anita said she was going to get her friend Bill to take his boat out to them, I jumped at the chance.

Bill wanted to get going by 9, so that meant getting up early. 4:30am early. The previous day had been rainy and cold, but even though it was dark, the day was looking good. The ferry ride over went without incident, and we arrived early enough to go to Tim Hortons first. When we made it to the dock, Bill hadn't arrived yet. We met one of the other divers, Alan. When Bill pulled in with his boat, Anita kept saying it wasn't him because it didn't look like his boat. Funny enough, it was indeed Bill, and his boat was not how Anita remembered it! It was a very nice dive boat. You could easily run a charter with it.

Bill said some other folks were joining us, so we settled down to wait a bit. The boat had a back splash deck, a great ladder, and nice benches. The back area was covered to add to the comfort.

Bill and Alan were diving rebreathers while Anita and I were on open circuit. I'd not seen a rebreather used before so it was pretty interesting. I could certainly appreciate its usefulness as a tool, but I figured I had a long way to go before open circuit was exhausted for me.

We waited quite a while until we found out that the other divers had bailed. Once we heard that, we got under way.

It was an awesome day; sunny but cold. The water was pretty choppy, too. At one point the swells were enough to topple Alan's rig. There were bungees to secure cylinders, but the sheer force of the swells was pretty powerful.

We decided to do the Cape Breton first. With the rough seas, we also decided to dive with one team on the boat at all times. It was pretty dicey getting into my doubles with the waves like they were, but I managed.

Anita and I went down first, leaving Bill and Alan to mind the boat. I must say it was a nice feeling knowing someone was manning home base. However, it would in the end make the day much longer.

We descended on the stern, because that's where we tied up to. The expansive stern deck opened up around us. The mooring chain was making quite a racket due to the waves. I hoped that it would be strong enough!

Our dive plan was to have an average depth of 80 feet and a 50 minute dive. We set out towards the bow, and marvelled at the amount of life. The doorways and hatches were very eerie.

At the bow, the anchor equipment made what looked like a face.

On the way back to the stern, we came across more cabezons than I'd ever seen before. I saw one and was quite excited. Then another and another and another. It started to seem pretty ho-hum! I had seen only one cabezon ever before. I had mistaken buffalo sculpin for them many times until someone pointed out that buffalo sculpin were tiny. Cabezon are a few feet. I chased a few of them with the video camera and annoyed them to no end I'm sure. They reminded me of angry bull dogs.

Huge Cabezon


Decorated warbonnet curled up in a tube


On the surface we helped Bill and Alan get into the water. The boat was pitching and rolling a lot, so it was difficult. They were slinging 2 extra cylinders so even though the rebreathers were lighter, they had far more gear. Again it was dicey getting into the water with the waves but it worked.

While they went down, Anita and I went up. Up to the pilot deck and the sun and some lunch. It was surprisingly sunny, if a bit windy. We had a nice home-made soup, cave-aged gruyere and other cheeses, and some nice bread. A very civil affair.

After Bill and Allan were on board, we moved the boat to the HMCS Saskatchewan. Since we had our surface interval done, we started our dive pretty soon after we moved. The amidships and stern tie-up lines were missing so we had to tie up to the bow. Bill said he'd get in touch with one of the Artificial Reef society people about it.

The Saskatchewan was still my favourite wreck. With the gun turrets, the tall superstructure, and all the hatches and life it was a lot more interesting than the Breton. The Breton was bigger though. We saw some awesome nudibranchs on the line up to to boat, a shaggy mouse nudibranch amongst others.

Back on the boat, we relaxed more in the sun while Bill and Allan did their dive.

At the end of a very long day, all of it was worth it.

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