Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Kelvin Gove - 11/12/2013

After a week of snow and cold weather, it was nice to see the weather change for the warmer. I hadn't been out diving with Jim Dixon for a while, and he, myself, Dennis and John Campbell headed out to Kelvin Grove. Unfortunately, John had a leaky regulator and had to cancel his dive. Jim, Dennis and me had a nice dive. I think I might have found a northern clingfish on a kelp strand, as well as a bunch of plainfin midshipmen. Hanging out in the shallows there were a lot of cool little nudibranchs, what I think was a decorated war bonnet, and a lot of very interesting shrimp. During the dive, there was an incredible amount of decorator crabs. At the beginning of our ascent it was a bit rocky, but it tightened up. Going to need a few skills dive coming up!

Topline 07/12/2013

Heather and I took the opportunity to use the Dragon Pack that we had gotten to go out with the Topline. The last few days had been incredibly cold, and this Saturday was no exception. The day might have been cold, but it was nice and clear. The Topline only had four divers on board, so it was very nice and roomy. Kevin and Jan were their regular excellent hosts. The ride out into Howe Sound was quite rough thought. There was a lot of wind coming down from Squamish and the water was very choppy. We almost turned around to wait things out. Kevin got us over to Bowen Island, and we dove Seymour Bay. I had never done Seymour Bay before, and it turned out to be a nice little dive site. We found several rocks covered in barnacle-eating nudibranchs. There were many hooded nudibranchs as well, a nice swimming nudibranch, and a puget sound king crab.



One funny incident on the boat was on the ride out, the small camp stove got a bit out of hand. Nothing dangerous, but there was an impressive amount of flame coming from it until it was turned off. You don't want to hear the exclamation "Fire" on a boat very often!

Whytecliff 03/12/2013

Dave, Dennis and myself planned to do a tech dive at Whytecliff again. It was an amazingly clear and cold night. When we made it down into the water at the Cut, poor Dave's suit developed a leak and he had to cancel. Dennis and I had a very nice dive. We didn't see a lot of new things, but it was an enjoyable dive! The cloud sponges were amazing as always. We did see a very interesting worm, and Dennis exclaimed later that he was a bit worried that it might somehow leap into his regulator. I had to laugh!