Sunday, July 3, 2016

Topline Post-Canada Day 02/07/2016

After an excellent time celebrating Canada Day, we went out with the Topline on the Saturday. It had been quite a while since we had gone out with them, and it would definitely be fun!

The day was perfect, not too hot, but sunny. The boat wasn't very full, so we had lots of room, too. All told, there were five of us on board, not including Steve and Bob running the show. Perfect!

We had a bit of a problem getting out of the bay with some trouble with a pretty big branch. Sam lent some assistance gearing up quickly and un-jamming things. So we were on our way without much trouble.

Without going much further, the video compilation :-)


Steve took us past North Bowyer Island for a look-see, but the currents were running pretty fiercely, so we went to the back side of Bowyer first. The top surface layer didn't look very appealing, and we hoped that the generally good visibility reports lately would still hold true. We didn't have to worry, as sure enough, visibility cleared up nicely under 20 feet.

We had one of the best dives on the back side of Bowyer that I can remember. Many critters, and lots of good opportunities for photos and video.

Right off the bat, a very photogenic golf-ball crab.


And a spiny lithoid crab, surprisingly out in the open, and not hiding in a crack. He had a snack in his claws too.


And this one was trying to make a meal of a much larger sea star.


I wasn't quite sure what this sculpin was, but it was very pretty.


And a pretty swimming anemone.


Heather got some good video and pictures of an energetic swimming scallop.


A huge field of zooanthids.


And, we came across a small type of crab we had not noticed before, the pygmy rock crab.


There were huge masses of nudibranch eggs everywhere as well.


This poor sea star got away from something, and was regrowing almost all of it's arms!


Finally, we saw a very odd bivalve, but I wasn't sure what it was. Donna Gibbs from the Vancouver Aquarium helped me out, identifying it as a lampshell. It was in the big green Pacific Life book, but I guess I didn't look hard enough!


After a very relaxing surface interval, we motored over to North Bowyer, and the current had laid down considerably. Bob explained where we might find some wolf eels, and we planned to try and check them out. On the way, we came across a whole bunch of fried egg jellies, some caught by giant plumose anemones.


The wolf eels weren't home, unfortunately, but we had a great dive regardless. The highlight was a field of tube dwelling anemones being preyed on by giant nudibranchs. They were everywhere. One nudibranch tried to dive down on an anemone, but just missed. It was all in the video compilation.

I just missed the up-line on the way back, but we put up an SMB and ascended up the pinnacle. On the surface, the boat was not far away. So close! I would have to brush up on some navigation :-)

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