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!
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!
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Whytecliff 16/11/2013
Heather and I went for a fun dive at Whytecliff. There were some very interesting things to see!
First off, there were a few sea stars that were affected by the sea star wasting syndrome that had been happening. I saw two, and sent in the data of this sighting to the Vancouver Aquarium. We found a very nice opalescent nudibranch, and several frosted nudibranchs. We went out to the Day Marker, and then back. On the way back, we came across a huge giant pacific octopus in a crack. We also saw a kelp greenling eating a small flounder.
We got some video, and it turned out not bad. The nudibranchs are very hard to see unfortunately.
First off, there were a few sea stars that were affected by the sea star wasting syndrome that had been happening. I saw two, and sent in the data of this sighting to the Vancouver Aquarium. We found a very nice opalescent nudibranch, and several frosted nudibranchs. We went out to the Day Marker, and then back. On the way back, we came across a huge giant pacific octopus in a crack. We also saw a kelp greenling eating a small flounder.
We got some video, and it turned out not bad. The nudibranchs are very hard to see unfortunately.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Wreck Fest 09-10/11/2013
Jim Dixon had been planning this for a while. The idea was to do some "cross-pollination" of GUE divers between BC and Seattle. For a long time, the GUE Seattle community was much stronger than that of BC. In the last year or so, this has started to change due to a lot of hard work by people like Jim, Guy Shockey, Alan Johnson, and Greg Nuttal to name a few. More GUE divers were getting trained, and the community was growing quite well. What was once a dream was becoming reality.
Wreck Fest was the inaugural kick off of GUE BC, and hopefully would become a yearly thing. Before I go much further, here are some pictures and video (so you can stop reading here, if that's all you want to see!).
First off, a group shot of (I think), everyone who was on the trip. There were two boats needed to take everyone, hosted by Sea Dragon Charters. There sure were a lot of us!!! I'm in the back right corner.
There was also a very good underwater picture taken by Vlad to commemorate the kick-off.
This is a link to some video of all of us hanging out during our decompression stops was take by Jay. It's pretty impressive the number of divers in the water, and an equally impressive amount of bubbles! You don't see that very often up here.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=728410797188163
I got some of my ownv video, and it really high-lights how good the visibility was. This was all on the HMCS Saskatchewan.
Now, on to the rest of the story!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I had finished the class portion of Tech 1+ on the day prior to Wreck Fest. The rest of the experience dives would take place over the next two days of diving. Day one dawned brightly. The weather forecast had said it would be rainy, but the it turned out to be quite the opposite. I was lucky enough to stay at Jim's house, and I highly recommend Chez Jim if you get the chance! His and Tori's hospitality was great, as always. Alex and Will were staying at the Marinaside hotel (the hotel partner with Seadragon Charters). They were right beside the boat, which was very convenient. All the other GUE Seattle folks were staying there too. I had seen the units before, and they were very modern and quite nice. Being so close to the boat meant that you could leave gear in the shed, or on the boat adding to the convenience.
We all met up at the Marinaside, and began putting gear together and getting it down onto the boats. Both the Sea Dragon and the Topline were at the dock to accommodate all the divers. It was an impressive group, that's for sure. I had a lot of new names to remember! As a quick list there was myself, Jim, Greg, Shawn, Vlad, Guy, John, Drew, Liz and Ryan from BC, and Alex, Will, Bex, Jay, Greg, Keese, Koos, Mike, and Ryland from Seattle (if I missed anyone, apologies!).
I was on the Topline with Guy, Alex and Will, along with most of the Seattle folks. Kevin and Jan were our gracious hosts, and Christine and Glen were crewing the Sea Dragon. There was a lot of meeting and greeting going on, but we got the boats filled and loaded quickly and were all soon off to the wrecks. The amount of gear coming along was impressive. Everyone was diving doubles, and most had at least one stage as well. Kevin commented that he had never seen the Topline so low in the water before!
The Cape Breton was the first wreck of the trip, and both dives were fabulous. The visibility was excellent, and the current was low. It was very cool to see so many divers on the wreck at once. I remember laughing at the number of cameras being pointed around. It seemed like everywhere you looked, someone was snapping photos or shooting video. There were some very nice large cabezon on the decks, as well as the usual plethora of plumose anemones, copper rockfish and ling cod. It was also impressive on the decompression stops to see so many divers in one place, all in trim and holding perfectly level. The amount of bubbles was also staggering, and quite pretty. Here is where I was introduced (unwittingly) to the game that the Seattle folks played of clipping a toy to another diver without them knowing. There was a chicken, an octopus, and a princess doll, of which I seemed to end up with quite often! You really had to watch your back with those Seattle folks, haha.
That evening, Jim and Tori hosted everyone at their home in Ladysmith. It was a great evening, giving a chance for everyone to meet and talk more with each other. Liz provided beer courtesy of Lighthouse Brewing. Guy Shockey did a short talk on the GUE-BC Project Baseline and announced that next year there would be a large GUE get-together in Victoria. Similar events have happened before, and now that the GUE BC community was large enough, it would also form a nexus where these kind of events would periodically take place. It would be a fantastic opportunity to meet some of the folks we had only heard about. Keep an eye out for the official announcement of dates!
Koos also did a talk on the GUE Seattle Project Baseline. The amount of work that had been done there was very impressive. I highly recommend you read through that page, if you haven't. I hope that GUE-BC will get to that level soon. Guy also gave away some GUE swag, including some tank bands. Will was the big winner that evening, carrying away the tank bands. The icing on the cake was that he actually needed them! Speaking of cake, the cake came out after the draw complete with ship decoration in commemoration of Wreck Fest. Like all good things though, the evening wound down and people started to head home. There was still a big day of diving yet to go.
We met earlier the next day because Kevin wanted to take the Topline back to Vancouver in the daylight. With winter here and daylight savings time on it was getting quite dark quite early. The early start worked out well, since that allowed many of us to catch earlier ferries. Once the boats were sorted out, off we went. The last day was two dives on the HMCS Saskatchewan. Like the dives on the previous day, these were just awesome. The visibility seemed to be even better I thought. I got nailed by the octopus again on a deco stop, and ended up taking it home with me with the promise of continuing the tradition in BC. I also awarded myself the swan dive award, as an errant wave turned my giant stride into a face-plant. All was good though, and I don't think many people saw, haha.
Unfortunately, all the great diving soon came to an end and it was time to say good-byes. Based on all the smiles, I would say the event was a huge success. Several new certifications were finished as well, with Jay Olsen, Mike Bearda and Rebekah Marshall finishing Rec 3 and Alex Adolfi, Will Baxter and myself completing Tech 1+. Not to mention the many new friends that were made. I'm sure that everyone was looking forward to the next event! A big thanks goes out to Jim Dixon who was the main master-mind behind the event, as well as Guy Shockey for helping with fill logistics, and finally Tori for making such great food and providing the cake!
Finally, I think these crazy pictures sum up the spirit of fun and camaraderie that this trip had.
Wreck Fest was the inaugural kick off of GUE BC, and hopefully would become a yearly thing. Before I go much further, here are some pictures and video (so you can stop reading here, if that's all you want to see!).
First off, a group shot of (I think), everyone who was on the trip. There were two boats needed to take everyone, hosted by Sea Dragon Charters. There sure were a lot of us!!! I'm in the back right corner.
There was also a very good underwater picture taken by Vlad to commemorate the kick-off.
This is a link to some video of all of us hanging out during our decompression stops was take by Jay. It's pretty impressive the number of divers in the water, and an equally impressive amount of bubbles! You don't see that very often up here.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=728410797188163
I got some of my ownv video, and it really high-lights how good the visibility was. This was all on the HMCS Saskatchewan.
Now, on to the rest of the story!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I had finished the class portion of Tech 1+ on the day prior to Wreck Fest. The rest of the experience dives would take place over the next two days of diving. Day one dawned brightly. The weather forecast had said it would be rainy, but the it turned out to be quite the opposite. I was lucky enough to stay at Jim's house, and I highly recommend Chez Jim if you get the chance! His and Tori's hospitality was great, as always. Alex and Will were staying at the Marinaside hotel (the hotel partner with Seadragon Charters). They were right beside the boat, which was very convenient. All the other GUE Seattle folks were staying there too. I had seen the units before, and they were very modern and quite nice. Being so close to the boat meant that you could leave gear in the shed, or on the boat adding to the convenience.
We all met up at the Marinaside, and began putting gear together and getting it down onto the boats. Both the Sea Dragon and the Topline were at the dock to accommodate all the divers. It was an impressive group, that's for sure. I had a lot of new names to remember! As a quick list there was myself, Jim, Greg, Shawn, Vlad, Guy, John, Drew, Liz and Ryan from BC, and Alex, Will, Bex, Jay, Greg, Keese, Koos, Mike, and Ryland from Seattle (if I missed anyone, apologies!).
I was on the Topline with Guy, Alex and Will, along with most of the Seattle folks. Kevin and Jan were our gracious hosts, and Christine and Glen were crewing the Sea Dragon. There was a lot of meeting and greeting going on, but we got the boats filled and loaded quickly and were all soon off to the wrecks. The amount of gear coming along was impressive. Everyone was diving doubles, and most had at least one stage as well. Kevin commented that he had never seen the Topline so low in the water before!
The Cape Breton was the first wreck of the trip, and both dives were fabulous. The visibility was excellent, and the current was low. It was very cool to see so many divers on the wreck at once. I remember laughing at the number of cameras being pointed around. It seemed like everywhere you looked, someone was snapping photos or shooting video. There were some very nice large cabezon on the decks, as well as the usual plethora of plumose anemones, copper rockfish and ling cod. It was also impressive on the decompression stops to see so many divers in one place, all in trim and holding perfectly level. The amount of bubbles was also staggering, and quite pretty. Here is where I was introduced (unwittingly) to the game that the Seattle folks played of clipping a toy to another diver without them knowing. There was a chicken, an octopus, and a princess doll, of which I seemed to end up with quite often! You really had to watch your back with those Seattle folks, haha.
That evening, Jim and Tori hosted everyone at their home in Ladysmith. It was a great evening, giving a chance for everyone to meet and talk more with each other. Liz provided beer courtesy of Lighthouse Brewing. Guy Shockey did a short talk on the GUE-BC Project Baseline and announced that next year there would be a large GUE get-together in Victoria. Similar events have happened before, and now that the GUE BC community was large enough, it would also form a nexus where these kind of events would periodically take place. It would be a fantastic opportunity to meet some of the folks we had only heard about. Keep an eye out for the official announcement of dates!
Koos also did a talk on the GUE Seattle Project Baseline. The amount of work that had been done there was very impressive. I highly recommend you read through that page, if you haven't. I hope that GUE-BC will get to that level soon. Guy also gave away some GUE swag, including some tank bands. Will was the big winner that evening, carrying away the tank bands. The icing on the cake was that he actually needed them! Speaking of cake, the cake came out after the draw complete with ship decoration in commemoration of Wreck Fest. Like all good things though, the evening wound down and people started to head home. There was still a big day of diving yet to go.
We met earlier the next day because Kevin wanted to take the Topline back to Vancouver in the daylight. With winter here and daylight savings time on it was getting quite dark quite early. The early start worked out well, since that allowed many of us to catch earlier ferries. Once the boats were sorted out, off we went. The last day was two dives on the HMCS Saskatchewan. Like the dives on the previous day, these were just awesome. The visibility seemed to be even better I thought. I got nailed by the octopus again on a deco stop, and ended up taking it home with me with the promise of continuing the tradition in BC. I also awarded myself the swan dive award, as an errant wave turned my giant stride into a face-plant. All was good though, and I don't think many people saw, haha.
Unfortunately, all the great diving soon came to an end and it was time to say good-byes. Based on all the smiles, I would say the event was a huge success. Several new certifications were finished as well, with Jay Olsen, Mike Bearda and Rebekah Marshall finishing Rec 3 and Alex Adolfi, Will Baxter and myself completing Tech 1+. Not to mention the many new friends that were made. I'm sure that everyone was looking forward to the next event! A big thanks goes out to Jim Dixon who was the main master-mind behind the event, as well as Guy Shockey for helping with fill logistics, and finally Tori for making such great food and providing the cake!
Finally, I think these crazy pictures sum up the spirit of fun and camaraderie that this trip had.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Tech 1+ Upgrade 08/11/2013
I had been looking forward to this course for some time. Jim Dixon had turned me on to it originally, as well as had Guy Shockey. The Tech 1+ Upgrade was one of the best bangs for your buck in terms of immediate value. Tech 1 limited you to only a bottom stage or a decompression bottle. That meant you had to often bring two sets of doubles with you if you wanted to do two dives. Two dives could easily be done, but they were often shorter, and the second dive could often be shortened so significantly as to not really be worth doing. With Tech 1+, you could supplement your gas with a bottom stage, as well as carrying a deco gas as well. Suddenly you could get onto a boat with a set of doubles and two aluminum 80s and get a good solid two dives in. Guy mentioned that you would quickly recover the cost of the course in helium savings, because the potential to dump residual gas was almost non-existent.
Over the few months leading up to the course I had tried to get in as much review and practice as I could. I decided not to dive with additional cylinders, and left that skill to be addressed in the course. I remember Dan MacKay saying that for one thing, you didn't want to dive outside of your certification, and also you shouldn't be expected to know everything before taking a GUE course. I was feeling pretty good when course day arrived.
I got up very early to catch the first ferry over to Nanaimo. I could have slept in a little bit, but I had missed getting a ferry reservation for the 8 o'clock one. Rather than tempt fate, I went for the early one, and slept on the ferry. It also meant that once I arrived in Nanaimo, I had a lot of time to relax and get down to Maple Bay to meet Guy.
Prior to the course start, I had met my fellow class-mates in email discussions started by Guy. Alex and Will were from Seattle, and were coming up to participate in the Wreck Fest that Jim Dixon had organized for the remainder of the weekend. We met in person finally at Guy's house, and we started the lecture portion of the class, after getting a tour of the impressive fill station that Guy had assembled at his house.
The class portion was quick, but very interesting. Guy went over the benefits of Tech 1+, and we reviewed the new procedures, as well as reviewing valve failures and some real-world examples of where you could apply Tech 1+. We found a mistake in the student notes, as compared to the latest Standard Operating Procedures, which did spark some searching to make sure which was correct.
Once all that was done, it was down to Maple Bay to do the critical skills! Jim Dixon joined us for this portion. All of these skills were done at about 30 feet, using 32%. For the first set of skills, we clipped on our two stage bottles, dropped down and shot a surface marker buoy, then ascended to 20 feet and did valve and s-drills. On that first descent, I miscalculated the extra negative weight of those stage bottles, and almost crashed into the bottom! Those extra pounds make a difference.
We had a brief discussion on the surface, and then went back down and ran a line from our SMB. During that, various failures happened. In all honesty, the failures went pretty good. guy commented later that my trim needed some work. I wasn't quite sure what happened, normally it is very good. I think it came down to laziness. Something to work on!
At the end, we dropped back down and went for a little fun dive, retrieved the SMB, and headed for the surface. Guy did another debrief, and then it was off for dinner! Will had gotten pretty cold during the dives, and we were all quite hungry. We met at the "Bad Habit" just in Maple Bay for some pretty amazing food.
All that was left was the experience dives, which we would cover during the Wreck Fest weekend that had already been planned. Quite a few GUE Seattle folks were coming up, as well as a bunch of GUE BC people, all of which had been organized by Jim. I couldn't wait!
Over the few months leading up to the course I had tried to get in as much review and practice as I could. I decided not to dive with additional cylinders, and left that skill to be addressed in the course. I remember Dan MacKay saying that for one thing, you didn't want to dive outside of your certification, and also you shouldn't be expected to know everything before taking a GUE course. I was feeling pretty good when course day arrived.
I got up very early to catch the first ferry over to Nanaimo. I could have slept in a little bit, but I had missed getting a ferry reservation for the 8 o'clock one. Rather than tempt fate, I went for the early one, and slept on the ferry. It also meant that once I arrived in Nanaimo, I had a lot of time to relax and get down to Maple Bay to meet Guy.
Prior to the course start, I had met my fellow class-mates in email discussions started by Guy. Alex and Will were from Seattle, and were coming up to participate in the Wreck Fest that Jim Dixon had organized for the remainder of the weekend. We met in person finally at Guy's house, and we started the lecture portion of the class, after getting a tour of the impressive fill station that Guy had assembled at his house.
The class portion was quick, but very interesting. Guy went over the benefits of Tech 1+, and we reviewed the new procedures, as well as reviewing valve failures and some real-world examples of where you could apply Tech 1+. We found a mistake in the student notes, as compared to the latest Standard Operating Procedures, which did spark some searching to make sure which was correct.
Once all that was done, it was down to Maple Bay to do the critical skills! Jim Dixon joined us for this portion. All of these skills were done at about 30 feet, using 32%. For the first set of skills, we clipped on our two stage bottles, dropped down and shot a surface marker buoy, then ascended to 20 feet and did valve and s-drills. On that first descent, I miscalculated the extra negative weight of those stage bottles, and almost crashed into the bottom! Those extra pounds make a difference.
We had a brief discussion on the surface, and then went back down and ran a line from our SMB. During that, various failures happened. In all honesty, the failures went pretty good. guy commented later that my trim needed some work. I wasn't quite sure what happened, normally it is very good. I think it came down to laziness. Something to work on!
At the end, we dropped back down and went for a little fun dive, retrieved the SMB, and headed for the surface. Guy did another debrief, and then it was off for dinner! Will had gotten pretty cold during the dives, and we were all quite hungry. We met at the "Bad Habit" just in Maple Bay for some pretty amazing food.
All that was left was the experience dives, which we would cover during the Wreck Fest weekend that had already been planned. Quite a few GUE Seattle folks were coming up, as well as a bunch of GUE BC people, all of which had been organized by Jim. I couldn't wait!
Porteau Cove 27/10/2013
Vlad and I had been talking about doing a scooter dive at Porteau for some time, and it was finally time. We couldn't have asked for a better day. It was sunny, fairly warm, and the tide was good. Visibility had been reported to be pretty good as well. Unfortunately, I had scooter problems for the first time in two years. No matter what I did, I couldn't get any response. Time to bring my T-16 in for fixing!
We modified our dive plan, and Vlad towed me out to the Nakaya buoy and we descended there. Unlike the last time I was out at the Nakaya, this time we found it :-) I was scratching my head on how we didn't find it the last time...
The dive itself was good, as always. The visibility wasn't extreme, but it was pretty good. we spent about 20 minutes poking around the Nakaya. We saw some nice big ling cod and some nice nudibranchs, but nothing much else of note. Vlad towed me to the Grant Hall, and we continued from there. We went to check the concrete blocks for octopus, but had no luck. After poking around at the tug and the sailboat, we headed back in.
All in all, a fun little dive! Now, to get my scooter fixed!
We modified our dive plan, and Vlad towed me out to the Nakaya buoy and we descended there. Unlike the last time I was out at the Nakaya, this time we found it :-) I was scratching my head on how we didn't find it the last time...
The dive itself was good, as always. The visibility wasn't extreme, but it was pretty good. we spent about 20 minutes poking around the Nakaya. We saw some nice big ling cod and some nice nudibranchs, but nothing much else of note. Vlad towed me to the Grant Hall, and we continued from there. We went to check the concrete blocks for octopus, but had no luck. After poking around at the tug and the sailboat, we headed back in.
All in all, a fun little dive! Now, to get my scooter fixed!
Monday, October 21, 2013
Project Baseline Artificial Reef Saskatchewan - 20/10/2013
I joined Jim Dixon as part of the BC Underwater Explorers to participate in Project Baseline Artificial Reef Saskatchewan. It was an exciting goal, to start documenting the growth of life on an artificial reef. Hopefully this information could be used to promote more artificial reefs in the future.
It was an extremely early start to the day for this. I met Dave Williams at Vlad's house, then we piled everything into Dave's truck to make the 6:30am ferry. I had to get up at 4am! It was also quite amusing in that I didn't get Vlad's phone number and relied on Google Maps to find his house. My phone crashed several times on the way, and Google had a very hard time putting me in the right location. In the end I had to use my brain to find the place. Even then, Vlad's house had no house number! So I was left peering in the windows of a strange house at 5am in the morning. In the end, I emailed him my phone number and we got it sorted out. A good thing too, because Dave had problems finding the place as well.
Vlad made us some excellent coffee, and then we were off to the ferry. Everything was going better, until we went to the coffee shop. When we were leaving, Dave saw all the cars loading! We started to run, but found all the doors and gates closed! Thankfully, hiding off to the side was one open ticket booth door, so we were able to get back to the truck and get on board. Whew.
The trip across was uneventful, and we spent the majority of it planning our dives, as well as some good old fashioned BC Ferry breakfast.
We got to the Sea Dragon without incident and started loading. Kevin and Jan of the Topline were over, as the Sea Dragon was not running that day. It was good to see both of them. Once everything was loaded, we were off. Jim gave a dive briefing on what we wanted to accomplish. There would be two stations set up, one forward of the observation tower, and one aft. Zip ties would attach plastic markers to the location on the railing where a line would be run across to the other side. Then video and still images would be taken up and down this line as a reference. These video and images would be used to document the change and growth of life on the wreck. Temperature would also be taken.
Dave was not feeling well, so did not end up diving. Myself, Vlad and Guy Shockey were the team that set up the station to the aft of the tower. Visibility was excellent. Guy had to do some MacGuyvering of the zip ties and plastic markers. The plastic was too thin and the zip ties ripped through the hole that was made. Nice improvisation Guy! I never thought a dive knife would be used to make holes like that. Vlad then did video and pictures up and down the line. Once all that was accomplished, we went and checked out the other team. They were finishing up too, and we all surfaced basically together.
With the goals we needed accomplished, the next dive was just for fun. Vlad and I teamed up, and explored the wreck mostly where the hull met the bottom. We poked our heads into the cutouts, and just took in the sights. I really enjoyed seeing the keel, where it seemed to knife into the bottom. We found a tremendously large ling cod as well. It was at least 5 feet long, and very wide. It started to look kind of grumpy at our intrusion, so we moved on quickly. Under the stern where the propeller shafts were was also very interesting. I had never explored that area before. It provided a very neat swim-through.
One thing that I found quite depressing was some graffiti on the starboard hull of the ship, about mid-ships. Someone had drawn some rude pictures, and scrawled some names as well. Whoever these inconsiderate divers were really should be ashamed of themselves. It reminded me of the happy face someone had drawn in the floor on one of the Mexico caves. These drawings would not disappear any time soon, and now would mar the experience for everyone who came to experience this grand wreck. It was very sad.
However, that was the only low point. Vlad got some very good video, and I hope to post some of it soon. The ride back to Vancouver was very nerve wracking. We had gotten into the 3 pm ferry line up, and the chances of getting on were low according to the ticket agent. It really came down to the wire, where we were watching rows of cars load, and it was getting closer and closer to us. But the lines kept stopping and pausing so we had no idea if we'd go or stay. Finally, we ended up being four of the last cars let on. We were literally almost hanging off the back of the boat! But we made it.
Kisenia posted her video from the day on Vimeo.
HMCS Saskatchewan from Ksenia on Vimeo.
It was an extremely early start to the day for this. I met Dave Williams at Vlad's house, then we piled everything into Dave's truck to make the 6:30am ferry. I had to get up at 4am! It was also quite amusing in that I didn't get Vlad's phone number and relied on Google Maps to find his house. My phone crashed several times on the way, and Google had a very hard time putting me in the right location. In the end I had to use my brain to find the place. Even then, Vlad's house had no house number! So I was left peering in the windows of a strange house at 5am in the morning. In the end, I emailed him my phone number and we got it sorted out. A good thing too, because Dave had problems finding the place as well.
Vlad made us some excellent coffee, and then we were off to the ferry. Everything was going better, until we went to the coffee shop. When we were leaving, Dave saw all the cars loading! We started to run, but found all the doors and gates closed! Thankfully, hiding off to the side was one open ticket booth door, so we were able to get back to the truck and get on board. Whew.
The trip across was uneventful, and we spent the majority of it planning our dives, as well as some good old fashioned BC Ferry breakfast.
We got to the Sea Dragon without incident and started loading. Kevin and Jan of the Topline were over, as the Sea Dragon was not running that day. It was good to see both of them. Once everything was loaded, we were off. Jim gave a dive briefing on what we wanted to accomplish. There would be two stations set up, one forward of the observation tower, and one aft. Zip ties would attach plastic markers to the location on the railing where a line would be run across to the other side. Then video and still images would be taken up and down this line as a reference. These video and images would be used to document the change and growth of life on the wreck. Temperature would also be taken.
Dave was not feeling well, so did not end up diving. Myself, Vlad and Guy Shockey were the team that set up the station to the aft of the tower. Visibility was excellent. Guy had to do some MacGuyvering of the zip ties and plastic markers. The plastic was too thin and the zip ties ripped through the hole that was made. Nice improvisation Guy! I never thought a dive knife would be used to make holes like that. Vlad then did video and pictures up and down the line. Once all that was accomplished, we went and checked out the other team. They were finishing up too, and we all surfaced basically together.
With the goals we needed accomplished, the next dive was just for fun. Vlad and I teamed up, and explored the wreck mostly where the hull met the bottom. We poked our heads into the cutouts, and just took in the sights. I really enjoyed seeing the keel, where it seemed to knife into the bottom. We found a tremendously large ling cod as well. It was at least 5 feet long, and very wide. It started to look kind of grumpy at our intrusion, so we moved on quickly. Under the stern where the propeller shafts were was also very interesting. I had never explored that area before. It provided a very neat swim-through.
One thing that I found quite depressing was some graffiti on the starboard hull of the ship, about mid-ships. Someone had drawn some rude pictures, and scrawled some names as well. Whoever these inconsiderate divers were really should be ashamed of themselves. It reminded me of the happy face someone had drawn in the floor on one of the Mexico caves. These drawings would not disappear any time soon, and now would mar the experience for everyone who came to experience this grand wreck. It was very sad.
However, that was the only low point. Vlad got some very good video, and I hope to post some of it soon. The ride back to Vancouver was very nerve wracking. We had gotten into the 3 pm ferry line up, and the chances of getting on were low according to the ticket agent. It really came down to the wire, where we were watching rows of cars load, and it was getting closer and closer to us. But the lines kept stopping and pausing so we had no idea if we'd go or stay. Finally, we ended up being four of the last cars let on. We were literally almost hanging off the back of the boat! But we made it.
Kisenia posted her video from the day on Vimeo.
HMCS Saskatchewan from Ksenia on Vimeo.
Egmont 11-14/10/2013
I am putting the video, and the picture album here at the top so that you don't have to wade through my long-winded trip report if you don't want to!
My trip photos are here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/103220399355688115810/albums/5935516061902728513
Francois Keen who was also on the trip posted his pictures here. They are very good!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/106879217@N06/sets/72157637032405226/
I was very excited about this trip. Heather and I had originally met on this same trip three years ago. At that time, we didn't dive together, so it would be great not only to have an anniversary trip but also to dive together!
Our hosts were once again Kal and Anne of Porpoise Bay Charters, and the trip was organized by International Diving Center. IDC had run a trip to Egmont every year for the last while called the "Strongwater Retreat". It was a small group with six of us: Heather, myself, Alan Johnson, Jonathan Gormick and two divers I didn't know, Francoise and Alex. We began to call the the "International Contingent" during the trip. Francois was French, but had spent many years in New Zealand and Alexei was Russian.
We met up on the Friday at the Egmont Government dock. Alexei and Francois were already there, so we introduced ourselves and started to haul gear onto the dock. Jonathan and Alan showed up not long after, as did Kal and our boat.
We were also greeted by the rest of the boat "crew", Nanuk and Nemo.
We also took the obligatory group shots, which every real trip needed!
We dumped off our gear and picked our accommodations (yurts again!) and then went for a quick evening dive at North Sutton Island. The visibility was excellent, and it was a good indication of the great diving to come. That evening, we had a late dinner and retired quite early in anticipation for the diving the next day.
The morning brought an excellent day. In fact, the whole weekend would be clear and sunny. Some mornings were extremely foggy, but that burned off quite quickly. The clear skies just added to the great weekend.
That morning, we discovered some clever racoons had gotten onto the boat, and had made a partial meal out of Francois' zipper wax. Kal said that they would get into anything if there was something edible. Chief culprits were people leaving snacks on the boat over night. After a hearty breakfast thanks to Anne, we were off for a great day of diving! Heather and I sure were happy!
The first stop was one of my favorites, the Power Lines in Agamemnon Channel. The cloud sponges were amazing as always, and the dwarf gorgonian corals were everywhere. I thought there was a lot more coral than I had seen previously, but it could just be that I was paying attention more. On the way back, we stopped and looked at the pictographs painted on one of the rock walls. Kal gave us a nice talk on some of the things they had learned about these ancient pictures. The next dive was after lunch at Courtnel's Folley, so named because of the man who built a large warehouse that never succeeded. Or at least the story was something like that! I believe we found the wolf eel that I have in the video on this dive. it was quite a surprise to see it. We had stopped to look at something else, then I looked down and there he was!
Nemo's Leap was next, and it was here I think we encountered some sea lion's at the end of the dive. We were on the surface, and Heather pointed excitedly behind me. Low and behold, a sea lion was curious about us and was quite close. Francois and Alexei were at their safety stop, and the sea lion came even nearer them. Francois got some excellent pictures of the sea lion. For me, I wasn't able to get my camera out quick enough to get any good video. It was a great experience!
That night we watched a video I had brought along, "The Land the Devours Ships", a National Geographic Explorer video that was done in 1993. It was about the finding of one of the ships that was sent to find the lost Franklin Expedition. It was a bit long, but was ultimately quite interesting.
The next day had us going to Captain's Corners first, then through the famous Skoocumchuck rapids to the wreck of the Chaudiere. The rapids were quite tame thankfully, and Heather got some video of our crossing them. It's at the start of the video at the top of this page. The Chaudiere was a less interesting wreck in my opinion due to the fact that it seemed to have a lot less life on it. The fact that it was on its side meant that a lot more of the hull was exposed, which seemed difficult for life to get a foot hold on. There did seem to be more growing on it this time though. Anne said that a group of pacific white sided dolphins had cleaned a lot of the life off of the wreck at one point. Maybe it was recovering. Anyway, it was still a very good dive. I found a shaggy mouse nudibranch on this dive, but didn't get any video! I must have turned off the camera instead of turning it on. Oh well, they were not the most interesting looking nudibranchs, but I loved the name and I did not seem them very often.
On the ride back, people got quite sleep in the beautiful day.
The last dive of the day was at South Sutton Island, because the sites that we looked at first were all not optimal. South Sutton was a nice little dive, with a lot of urchins and nice clear water. A perfect little dive before Thanksgiving Dinner!
The dinner was fabulous. Anne made us turkey and stuffing, and we had a great blackberry cobbler for desert. Too full to do much else, we again went to bed pretty early.
The next day dawned very spookily with even more mist and fog. On this the last day, we visited Jaggy Crack, and Swede's Reef. At Jaggy Crack the sheer number of feather stars was just incredible. They covered the wall with their waving tendrils. There were some excellent and very large nudibranchs as well, with a giant orange peel nudibranch, and sea lemons.
The last dive was at Swede's Reef. I was very excited about this dive, because of past experiences. I had found a puget sound king crab carapace on this dive, and I still had it. I was hoping to find another! Octopus used this area as one of their favorite hunting grounds. The deep side of the sea mound provided upwellings of nutrients that contributed to a very productive site. Heather and I found a very nice brown box crab, and a lot of large puget sound king crabs. I did find a carapace, but the crab that was making it had just shed it. It was extremely flimsy, but was quite interesting to see. Then Heather found the octopus! It was under a rock, but was exposed quite well. We got some great video of it sleeping. It was one of the high-lights of the trip. We also found a little moss-headed warbonnet, and lots of other little fish and critters. Swede's reef was one of the high-lights of the weekend.
All in all, the trip was again amazing. Hats off to Kal and Anne for being such gracious hosts, and IDC for organizing the trip! I can't wait for the next one!
My trip photos are here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/103220399355688115810/albums/5935516061902728513
Francois Keen who was also on the trip posted his pictures here. They are very good!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/106879217@N06/sets/72157637032405226/
I was very excited about this trip. Heather and I had originally met on this same trip three years ago. At that time, we didn't dive together, so it would be great not only to have an anniversary trip but also to dive together!
Our hosts were once again Kal and Anne of Porpoise Bay Charters, and the trip was organized by International Diving Center. IDC had run a trip to Egmont every year for the last while called the "Strongwater Retreat". It was a small group with six of us: Heather, myself, Alan Johnson, Jonathan Gormick and two divers I didn't know, Francoise and Alex. We began to call the the "International Contingent" during the trip. Francois was French, but had spent many years in New Zealand and Alexei was Russian.
We met up on the Friday at the Egmont Government dock. Alexei and Francois were already there, so we introduced ourselves and started to haul gear onto the dock. Jonathan and Alan showed up not long after, as did Kal and our boat.
The morning brought an excellent day. In fact, the whole weekend would be clear and sunny. Some mornings were extremely foggy, but that burned off quite quickly. The clear skies just added to the great weekend.
That morning, we discovered some clever racoons had gotten onto the boat, and had made a partial meal out of Francois' zipper wax. Kal said that they would get into anything if there was something edible. Chief culprits were people leaving snacks on the boat over night. After a hearty breakfast thanks to Anne, we were off for a great day of diving! Heather and I sure were happy!
Nemo's Leap was next, and it was here I think we encountered some sea lion's at the end of the dive. We were on the surface, and Heather pointed excitedly behind me. Low and behold, a sea lion was curious about us and was quite close. Francois and Alexei were at their safety stop, and the sea lion came even nearer them. Francois got some excellent pictures of the sea lion. For me, I wasn't able to get my camera out quick enough to get any good video. It was a great experience!
That night we watched a video I had brought along, "The Land the Devours Ships", a National Geographic Explorer video that was done in 1993. It was about the finding of one of the ships that was sent to find the lost Franklin Expedition. It was a bit long, but was ultimately quite interesting.
The next day had us going to Captain's Corners first, then through the famous Skoocumchuck rapids to the wreck of the Chaudiere. The rapids were quite tame thankfully, and Heather got some video of our crossing them. It's at the start of the video at the top of this page. The Chaudiere was a less interesting wreck in my opinion due to the fact that it seemed to have a lot less life on it. The fact that it was on its side meant that a lot more of the hull was exposed, which seemed difficult for life to get a foot hold on. There did seem to be more growing on it this time though. Anne said that a group of pacific white sided dolphins had cleaned a lot of the life off of the wreck at one point. Maybe it was recovering. Anyway, it was still a very good dive. I found a shaggy mouse nudibranch on this dive, but didn't get any video! I must have turned off the camera instead of turning it on. Oh well, they were not the most interesting looking nudibranchs, but I loved the name and I did not seem them very often.
On the ride back, people got quite sleep in the beautiful day.
The dinner was fabulous. Anne made us turkey and stuffing, and we had a great blackberry cobbler for desert. Too full to do much else, we again went to bed pretty early.
The next day dawned very spookily with even more mist and fog. On this the last day, we visited Jaggy Crack, and Swede's Reef. At Jaggy Crack the sheer number of feather stars was just incredible. They covered the wall with their waving tendrils. There were some excellent and very large nudibranchs as well, with a giant orange peel nudibranch, and sea lemons.
The last dive was at Swede's Reef. I was very excited about this dive, because of past experiences. I had found a puget sound king crab carapace on this dive, and I still had it. I was hoping to find another! Octopus used this area as one of their favorite hunting grounds. The deep side of the sea mound provided upwellings of nutrients that contributed to a very productive site. Heather and I found a very nice brown box crab, and a lot of large puget sound king crabs. I did find a carapace, but the crab that was making it had just shed it. It was extremely flimsy, but was quite interesting to see. Then Heather found the octopus! It was under a rock, but was exposed quite well. We got some great video of it sleeping. It was one of the high-lights of the trip. We also found a little moss-headed warbonnet, and lots of other little fish and critters. Swede's reef was one of the high-lights of the weekend.
All in all, the trip was again amazing. Hats off to Kal and Anne for being such gracious hosts, and IDC for organizing the trip! I can't wait for the next one!
Whytecliff 09/10/2013
Vlad and I went out to Whytecliff for a short skills dive. I had to get some more practice in for my upcoming Tech 1+ class in November. We did some valve drills, ran some line, and did gas switches. It went pretty well. It was getting darker a lot sooner, so it was more challenging doing valve drills in mid-water.
We didn't see a lot of anything interesting. I did learn that I needed to practice more on my line-work and on my valve drills. Slow steady improvements!
We didn't see a lot of anything interesting. I did learn that I needed to practice more on my line-work and on my valve drills. Slow steady improvements!
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Porteau Cove 02/10/2013
Dave Williams, Jim Dixon and myself went out to Porteau Cove for a quick scooter dive. It had been a long time since Dave had his scooter out, and same with me. Dave had gotten some new batteries, so it was a good test. Poor Jim had his scooter away for maintenance, so we did some practicing towing. Jim announced the up-coming launch of GUE-BC. Exciting times for diving in the Vancouver area! It was great to see that the community was building. I was looking forward to some of the projects that were being planned. Especially the marine life monitoring project on the Saskatchewan.
The plan was for me to tow Jim, and we'd follow the firehose, then make for the Nakaya. Things went a bit sideways when Jim and I arrived at the concrete block near the Nakaya and discovered that Dave was no where to be found! I had mistaken Jim's light for Dave's, and had not stopped on the way out to check if Dave as still there. It certainly reminded me how easy it was to lose someone while scootering! I also re-enforced the good practice of proper awareness. Being on the trigger full blast all the time was not the goal! Jim and I surfaced and quickly located Dave, who had surfaced as well. We met up at the marker buoy for the Nakaya and Dave explained that he had turned the pitch down too far on his scooter and couldn't keep up. We descended back down, and Dave re-adjusted his pitch and did a few practice loops. All was well from that point. We tied off our scooters on the concrete block, and set out to find the Nakaya. I discovered that my estimate on my suit inflation bottle was not adequate. The extra surface and descent drained the last of my gas from the bottle, so I was getting quite the suit squeeze! I got the team to hold, and connected my LPI hose briefly to get enough gas into my suit so that it was comfortable again. Ahh! Much better! I knew that I would only have to vent gas from my suit from that point on, so it was all good.
It was a night for incidents, because the next thing was that we could not find the Nakaya! You would think such a large object would be pretty easy to find. I am embarrassed to say that it eluded us this evening. Visibility wasn't that bad, but we must have just missed it. I knew it was near, but it wasn't meant to be. We even lost the scooters for a bit of time! Finally we found the concrete block again, and retrieved them. Then it was a short ride back to the Grant Hall hull. Dave almost ran right into it, it came up quite fast. For the rest of the dive after that point, we put the scooters away and just swam. There were no octopus that I could find, but at the end of the dive there were quite a few fish carcases in the shallows. They were being devoured by an army of various crabs of all sizes. The feeding frenzy was so violent that the fish seemed to be moving! I had never seen crabs so active in feeding before, and in such numbers. There were large schools of perch in the shallows too, that were surprised and confused by our lights. I chased them around a bit with my scooter. Unfortunately Dave said he sucked a few through his prop blades. Poor fish!
All in all, a good dive, where I learned a lot, yet again. I was glad to be reminded of the importance of team unity and communication.
The plan was for me to tow Jim, and we'd follow the firehose, then make for the Nakaya. Things went a bit sideways when Jim and I arrived at the concrete block near the Nakaya and discovered that Dave was no where to be found! I had mistaken Jim's light for Dave's, and had not stopped on the way out to check if Dave as still there. It certainly reminded me how easy it was to lose someone while scootering! I also re-enforced the good practice of proper awareness. Being on the trigger full blast all the time was not the goal! Jim and I surfaced and quickly located Dave, who had surfaced as well. We met up at the marker buoy for the Nakaya and Dave explained that he had turned the pitch down too far on his scooter and couldn't keep up. We descended back down, and Dave re-adjusted his pitch and did a few practice loops. All was well from that point. We tied off our scooters on the concrete block, and set out to find the Nakaya. I discovered that my estimate on my suit inflation bottle was not adequate. The extra surface and descent drained the last of my gas from the bottle, so I was getting quite the suit squeeze! I got the team to hold, and connected my LPI hose briefly to get enough gas into my suit so that it was comfortable again. Ahh! Much better! I knew that I would only have to vent gas from my suit from that point on, so it was all good.
It was a night for incidents, because the next thing was that we could not find the Nakaya! You would think such a large object would be pretty easy to find. I am embarrassed to say that it eluded us this evening. Visibility wasn't that bad, but we must have just missed it. I knew it was near, but it wasn't meant to be. We even lost the scooters for a bit of time! Finally we found the concrete block again, and retrieved them. Then it was a short ride back to the Grant Hall hull. Dave almost ran right into it, it came up quite fast. For the rest of the dive after that point, we put the scooters away and just swam. There were no octopus that I could find, but at the end of the dive there were quite a few fish carcases in the shallows. They were being devoured by an army of various crabs of all sizes. The feeding frenzy was so violent that the fish seemed to be moving! I had never seen crabs so active in feeding before, and in such numbers. There were large schools of perch in the shallows too, that were surprised and confused by our lights. I chased them around a bit with my scooter. Unfortunately Dave said he sucked a few through his prop blades. Poor fish!
All in all, a good dive, where I learned a lot, yet again. I was glad to be reminded of the importance of team unity and communication.
Whytecliff 18/09/2013
Vlad and I planned to do a Wednesday night dive at The Cut. Dave Williams was going to join, but got stuck in traffic and couldn't make it. There was some crazy traffic that evening on the Iron Workers bridge.
Living in North Vancouver again was really paying off. With Vlad living nearby too, it really made getting to the dive site a lot easier. The park was a lot less crowded since summer was over. The weather was quite good, sunny and not rainy. It was getting noticeably darker during the evenings, and this would be a real night dive!
We planned for a 70 minute dive with 10 minutes of deco on O2, and an average depth of 25 meters. The visibility was pretty good, but the current was pretty strong when we started to the right of the Cut. There were a great number of dead star fish. I didn't know what they were until later, though. They looked like patches of blue-ish slime. Not much like a star fish at all! There shear number of them was quite different, I had not seen something like that before. Later in the week I asked the Vancouver Aquarium staff about it, and they said that die-offs can happen for a lot of different reasons.
Apart from that, I don't think there was much else of note to report. It was a pleasant dive, and nice to get out of the water when there was no rain!
Living in North Vancouver again was really paying off. With Vlad living nearby too, it really made getting to the dive site a lot easier. The park was a lot less crowded since summer was over. The weather was quite good, sunny and not rainy. It was getting noticeably darker during the evenings, and this would be a real night dive!
We planned for a 70 minute dive with 10 minutes of deco on O2, and an average depth of 25 meters. The visibility was pretty good, but the current was pretty strong when we started to the right of the Cut. There were a great number of dead star fish. I didn't know what they were until later, though. They looked like patches of blue-ish slime. Not much like a star fish at all! There shear number of them was quite different, I had not seen something like that before. Later in the week I asked the Vancouver Aquarium staff about it, and they said that die-offs can happen for a lot of different reasons.
Apart from that, I don't think there was much else of note to report. It was a pleasant dive, and nice to get out of the water when there was no rain!
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Kelvin Grove 11/09/2013
Dave, Jim and I did an evening tech dive at Kelvin Grove. I didn't bring my camera along, and I ended up regretting it because we saw some really great stuff.
I led the dive, and we came across a stubby squid. I didn't take this picture, but this was a good representation of it.
The stubby squid was super cool. We watched it for a few minutes, and then left it alone. There were a lot of sailfin sculpins as well, which I had not seen that often in the past.
I led the dive, and we came across a stubby squid. I didn't take this picture, but this was a good representation of it.
The stubby squid was super cool. We watched it for a few minutes, and then left it alone. There were a lot of sailfin sculpins as well, which I had not seen that often in the past.
At the end of the dive, a salmon surprised us. I had never seen a salmon on a dive before. We were in the shallows and I saw something dart quickly to my right. The salmon swam quickly around us a few times, then vanished. It was very cool!
Sponge Bioherm 25/08/2013
Myself, Vlad, and Jim went out on the Topline to dive the sponge bioherm again.
It was an excellent day for a dive. There was a fair amount of surface current, so the descent was quick, and I was a bit worried that we might miss the bioherm. However, it worked out great in the end. Jim and Dave dove together and went first. We were going to stay as a group of four, but that didn't work out because of the current. We did end up meeting up on the dive, passing each other. The sponges were amazing as always. I remember seeing some of the biggest ling cods I had seen in a long time. Vlad got some good photos.
https://plus.google.com/photos/103220399355688115810/albums/5916839587767052033
The second dive we did was on the back side of Boywer Island. I'd never dove back there before, so it was quite cool. It was a nice wall, and Vlad and I had a good dive. I didn't find anything particularly interesting, but it was still a nice dive. All in all, it was a successful day of diving.
It was an excellent day for a dive. There was a fair amount of surface current, so the descent was quick, and I was a bit worried that we might miss the bioherm. However, it worked out great in the end. Jim and Dave dove together and went first. We were going to stay as a group of four, but that didn't work out because of the current. We did end up meeting up on the dive, passing each other. The sponges were amazing as always. I remember seeing some of the biggest ling cods I had seen in a long time. Vlad got some good photos.
https://plus.google.com/photos/103220399355688115810/albums/5916839587767052033
The second dive we did was on the back side of Boywer Island. I'd never dove back there before, so it was quite cool. It was a nice wall, and Vlad and I had a good dive. I didn't find anything particularly interesting, but it was still a nice dive. All in all, it was a successful day of diving.
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