I had planned to try out my new drysuit at the GUE-BC Fall RoundUp, but it didn't work out. So, I decided to go out with Vladimir for a fun scooter dive to try it out. Here was the obligatory glamour shot!
On the dive, we had a lot of fun and saw a lot of critters. We scootered out around the plumose garden, up the Cut and then back across to the island and then in. There were many large white nudibranchs, giant plumose anemones, huge cloud sponges, and giant ling cod. There was also a crowd of brown box crabs, maybe about 7 all in one location. They were not big, maybe fist sized. Very interesting to see, you didn't see a lot of brown box crabs at Whytecliff. There were also a huge number of giant coonstripe shrimps and spot prawns, and glass shrimp.
On the scooter out, visibility wasn't the greatest and we almost ran over a lion's mane jellyfish. Unfortunately I was hoping to see some dogfish, but that was not to be. At the end of the dive, I did a valve drill in my new suit, and that went ok. Everything seemed to be pretty good.
The GUE-BC Fall RoundUp had been planned for quite some time. The idea came after the successful GUE-BC WreckFest in 2013. Hopefully these events would become regular, attracting both new and old attendees every year. For this, the first RoundUp, there were many people to thank. Richard Lundgren for presenting on the Mars Project, RockFish Divers, SeaDragon Charters, Wilson Diving, Pacific Pro Dive, as well as Liz Tribe, Guy Shockey and Jim Dixon for providing the lion's share of logistics and organizing. Thank you to you all!
For me, I was lucky enough to just be able to enjoy the weekend fun. I crossed over on Saturday to attend the social get-together at the Fernwood Inn pub. On the ferry ride over, it was a very beautiful evening.
I was also lucky enough to see a group of seals swimming off the side of the ferry. You never knew what you would see on the wild west coast!
The get-together at the Fernwood was a great time. There were at least 25 people there. I had some trouble keeping up with all the conversations! I met some new people, namely Steve Ratcliffe and Chris Locker, and was able to catch up with some old friends too. Kevin Swoboda had just completed his Tech 1, and Alex Adolfi had completed his Tech 2. It was great to catch up with Alex and Rebekah, and Kathryn. I had not seen Alex and Bex since the wreck-fest, and I had not seen Kathryn since we had dove on the wrecks several months previously. Funny enough, no one remembered to take any pictures during the event! I only remembered when I was half-way to Ladysmith (Jim Dixon graciously put up 5 of us at his house). The community really came together to make this weekend such a success. I'm sure Guy was up late doing fills many times. Thanks Guy!
At Chez Jim, I stayed in his trailer along with John Campbell. It was a lot of fun "camping out". I certainly appreciated the better bed of the camper though! In the morning Jim surprised us all with a pancake breakfast. I would recommend staying with Jim and Tori any day! Liz Tribe dropped buy as well, and scored some left over pancakes.
On the Sunday, the plan was to dive with the SeaDragon. Other groups were going to Madronna for some shore dives. I got to team up with my new friend Steve Ratcliffe from Seattle for a tech dive on the Cape Breton. It was a fabulous dive, and I had not felt so comfortable and switched on for a dive in a long while. I got some video here.
Visibility was pretty good, and you could really appreciate the scale of the wreck. There were four dive teams, and everything went like clock-work. Unfortunately we couldn't do a second dive as the Seattle folks needed to catch the 3pm ferry. But we planned for a longer single dive, and that worked out great. I think it was the longest duration technical dive I had been on to date, so it was a record for me. On the dive we saw a number of giant cabezon and lingcod, along with the requisite plumose anemones, cloud sponges and rockfish. Steve and I circumnavigated the wreck, swam up and down the outside deck passages and just had a good time.
O the way back, we didn't forget to get a group shot this time. From left to right, Alex, myself, Dave, Rebekah, Steve, Teresa, Mike and John.
The day's weather was very strange. As you could see in the above picture it was sometimes completely sunny, then completely foggy.
There were many other great pictures from the weekend as well. Here are two from Madronna.
And here is one from the Friday diving on the Nanaimo Wrecks.
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. I wish I could have taken part in all of it, but the part that I did participate in was amazing. I could not wait until next year!
Vlad, John Campbell, Dan Wei and I went out for some scooter fun at Porteau Cove.
The evening could not have been better. The high tide was almost at slack, and the weather was beautiful. It was getting a lot darker at night, which I noticed when we were gearing down. I forgot my headlamp at home!
Our dive plan was for a pretty long dive. It ended up being one hour and thirty minutes. The plan was to scooter the wall past the Nakaya, then return and spend more time in the Porteau Cove proper.
At the start of the dive, even though visibility didn't seem that bad, both dive teams got separated. John and Dan ended up having their own dive, while Vlad and I explored the wall. We had planned for this contingency so there was no surprise.
On our dive, we had some very lucky encounters. One was with a stubby squid, just sitting on a rock.
The next was with a lion's mane jelly fish.
And the best encounter was with a 4 foot dogfish shark just sitting on the bottom!
We came across the remains of some old car amongst the rocky debris, a float line from some fishing gear encrusted with tube worms, and a giant pacific octopus. The octopus was under the concrete blocks in the main Porteau area.
Heather and I went out with Sea Dragon Charters for their Jamaican Day themed trip. We spent a lot of time the night before making t-shirts and caps ringed with wool dreadlocks. I thought it turned out pretty well! This was the result, and we ended up wining two Sea Dragon t-shirts for our efforts.
Kevin and Jan made jerk chicken on a barbecue on the top deck of the boat. It was yummy!
The diving was great to. The first site we went to was Dragon's Den. We found one of the new dragon's in the aforementioned Dragon's Den.
We also were out counting rockfish for the Vancouver Aquarium. We were taking the Citizen Science diver course, and were collecting numbers for the Rockfish Survey.
The second dive was at Christie Islet. A new marker buoy had been put in by the ARSBC. Unfortunately the visibility wasn't good enough for us to find it again at the end of the dive!
In the end it was a day of an incredible amount of fun. We didn't get a lot of video, but here is some.
Dave Willliams and Jim Dixon asked me to dive Wet Dream, also known as the Nomash
River cave and I jumped at the chance. I had previously read Jim's article in Quest Volume 15, Issue 2, Page 36 "Cave Diving on Northern Vancouver Island" and I couldn't wait. He had gone up with Greg
a few weeks prior as well.
I did a bit of digging (pun intended!) on my own about the cave. I uncovered a list of longest caves in Canada. Nomash River cave was ranked 48 on this list. It shows 1168 meters, but I believe it has been pushed past this.
I further learned that the nearby village of Zeballos was 200 years old, and the area held a number of abandoned gold mines and one cave large enough to land a helicopter in.
Jim had mentioned Peter Norris and Richard Jack to me before, and they were the first ones to dive it in 2012. They had been on site the previous time when he and Greg had dove the cave. Jim had gotten a wealth of information from Peter, with the understanding being that no new exploration would be done, and that they would be able to complete the work they started in this amazing cave. I was able to find Peter's original post about the discovery on this site. We would not have been able to do this without their excellent detective work and determination. Thank you! I was honored that the opportunity existed at all to dive this gem. It truly was a privilege, and I am grateful to my cave instructor Christophe LeMalliot for instilling the awe, wonder and respect of caves in me.
"Erosion of the continuous band of limestone that runs down from Quatsino has produced thousands of caves on northern Vancouver Island. The Artlish Caves Provincial Park, located northwest of Zeballos, is a concentration of river karst features unique in Western Canada. In terms of flow volume and passage dimensions, the Artilish River cave system is currently the largest active river cave system known in Canada. Little Hustan Cave Regional Park can be easily accessed just off the road into Zeballos. Dozens of “undiscovered” caves, sink holes, and disappearing streams in the area await those who like to explore."
Without further ado, here is the video that resulted from our trip. Dave was testing out his video rig, and while it still needed work, it turned out very well. There were the obligatory divers swimming behind columns, cave passage sequences, and at the end a descent into the shaft. A trout was Jim's dive partner for two sequences, which was quite funny.
Logistically we planned on a single set of double 130s each with 32%. We had one day of diving, and it was not worth the effort to bring more gear. Ideally it was a test to see if you could dive the cave in a single day and return.
Dave and I
arrived on the early ferry from Vancouver to Naiamo. For anyone not familiar with BC Ferries, a ferry breakfast was an institution!
We met Jim in the Costco parking lot and packed all the gear into one vehicle. Guy Shockey had been awesome and provided me with a set of 130s. This meant I didn't have to bring mine over. Having Guy as a resource on the Island certainly was great, thanks Guy!. From there we were on our way after a stop
at Serious Coffee. It was a fun 5 hour drive, with lots of excited talk
about the cave and what we might experience. Jim filled us in on the information that Peter had shared with him on the previous trip.
The logging road was dusty and we had a casualty. The top of
Jim's tote flew off! Jim was too eager to get to the cave and so we left it behind, saying we'd get it on the way out. We saw a view like this for a long time.
The logging road turned left at the Nomash bridge and we got a look at
the river. It was beautiful! You could see fish swimming and the water
was crystal clear.
At the same time, we had to take the obligatory team picture: myself, Jim, and Dave on the right
Not far up the road brought us to the trail. It was hot and sunny and a new road had been put in. Jim commented that it would be even easier to get down to the river. However, that was at the expense of active logging, which marred the landscape quite a bit. But then again, without this industry, we would never have been able to dive this cave.
We planned to do trail improvement but first we had to see the cave.
It was exactly how I thought it would look. In the foreground was the cave entrance, beneath the ledge that I was standing on.
The previous year when Jim and Dave had been up, the area had been a raging torrent. There definitely was a window of opportunity when this cave was dive-able. The trail down was definitly "rustic" as Jim liked to call it. I think some mountain goats might like to call it home!
Since the trail down was challenging, the trail improvement was
sorely needed to prevent accidents. We spent several hours digging and placing boards and
wood stakes. It was a bit haphazard but it helped. We agreed that more work was needed. Steel rods along with a post driver, a pick axe and pressure treated wood were some of the things we thought would be useful. With a proper trail, the cave would be doable as a day trip. This was the end result of our work. A rope tied to a tree above completed it.
We then used our hard work
to ferry down our gear. It did make quite a difference. The thought was that if anyone packed it back up that hill and stole it, they deserved it. A quick dip in the water capped things off.
Without a dry suit it was cold! I was the only one brave enough to jump in. However, the look on my face probably said "foolish" instead.
I learned a new word on this trip, "swallet". It was the opening in which a stream disappeared underground. Jim had been told about it by Peter, but was unsure of the distance. We set off to try and find it, but got only brambles. Dave
took a spill and came up very scratched and poked by thorns. This picture doesn't really do justice to how thick the undergrowth was. If you were doing exploring snag-proof long pants, long sleeve shirts and machetes would be useful!
The swallet was a lot farther up than we knew at the time. Looking at the notes online from Peter, he mentioned 3 kilometers, but Jim thought 300 meters! But to be fair, he wasn't sure at the time, so it was all good (but prickly) fun in the end.
Camp was made and it was comfy. You had to camp fairly far from the cave entrance, as there weren't any good flat areas. It was in a gravel pit up the
road. Dave took a panorama picture.
Other divers had even brought in camp toilets, talk about luxury! We had Jim's event tent
and a 4 man tent. The rest of the evening consisted of dinner and
lots of talking. There were some biting insects, but it wasn't bad. The weather was spectacular and there was an incredible full moon that night as well.
During the night, I heard what I thought was a small animal running along the side of the tent. It happened several times, and even though I was sure that we had packed all our food in the truck, I thought it was a good idea to investigate. On getting outside, I couldn't see any animal evidence at all. Back in my sleeping bag, the sound happened again and I realized what it was. Dew had been collecting on the event tent and when it built up enough it would spill over the edge and land on the ground in such a way as to sound like small feet running. Funny! Can't miss out on the opportunity for a picture of snug feet in a sleeping bag.
Since we had an early evening, we had an early morning. It was crisp and clear, and nothing tasted better than breakfast in the outdoors. Dave's bacon and eggs in
a bag caused quite the discussion.
Finally, on to the cave! All our gear was still there and free of squirrels. We were surprised to hear rustling in the brush. A curious logger had come to visit and ask about the cave. Clearly he knew about it, and that divers were diving it. He asked about the size of the fish, I guess wanting to know if it was worth putting a line in. He also extended the offer that if there was a problem that they were available. It was nice to see the spirit of helping alive and well in the back country. Once he left, we finished our gearing up.
The cool morning was
perfect and the rocks were not slippery. It was challenging to stage
getting into our gear and doing checks with no stable space to stand.
Ultimately one stood in the hole, one on the rock, and one on the
nearby ledge. This would not work well with slippery conditions. We figured a wood pallet with an x-table could help when it got rainy.
You had to go in one at a time, but the entry was not bad. We secured our line to a tree outside the entrance, we formed up the team, Jim tied into the main line and away we
went. We had the luxury of a main line, which on Jim and Greg's previous dive they did not. The cave itself was wide enough for 2 or 3 divers side by side and it reminded me of Mexico. Portions of the walls were stunning white,
others were dark and sucked up your light. Ridges of rock came up from the floor and ceiling like
stegosaurus plates. About 10 minutes in was a rock column archway blocked by a
piece of brown rock. All the limestone had been eaten away, leaving a thin plate of harder rock in between. Another interesting feature was that the sediment layers had been turned vertical by some geological event. This meant you got fantastic striated patterns on the floors and ceilings. Grey expanses of lime stone with white marbling were exquisite. Pure white marble floors and ceilings subtly etched with pits abounded. Several locations had breakdown debris from the ceiling.
There was no detectable flow to speak of. A trout followed us into and out of the cave as well, feeding on particles dislodged in our passing. Visibility was excellent, but we were surprised at how variable. There were some areas with much more sediment in the water. On the second dive we noticed quite a bit of percolation. Doing the video portion, we came off of the main line a bit and our bubbles dislodged it from the ceiling. We made a note to stay in the more traveled portion of the passage in the future.
The high point was the shaft 20 minutes into the penetration. Jim and Greg missed
this last time as they ran out of line, but this time we had that main line. Thanks again to those who laid it! The shaft was at least a diver wide and maybe
2 divers long. It was easily one of the most impressive features. It dropped down about 9 meters before continuing to slope down. Not long
after the shaft we thumbed the dive on depth. Prior to the shaft, we found a pink sparkly mechanical pencil poking up from the bottom. Jim moved it to the line, in case it belonged to one of the previous explorers. It sure looked out of place amongst the natural beauty.
On the surface, we all agreed that it was a fabulous dive, and we couldn't wait to go back in. Dave decided to take a dip like I did, but he cheated and kept his dry suit on. He is a little hard to see due to his camouflage though. Dave even brought camouflage rope for the trail, and the running joke was that no one would be able to find it.
We decided to do some video on the second dive. Dave put together his GoPro and lights, and back in we went. He was still playing with his setup, but it turned out pretty well. You could see the cave topography, the limestone striations, the descent into the shaft, and the columns.
After the diving was done, and our gear was all packed, I took one last dip into the freezing water to refresh myself. Jim had seen the Seattle community doing post-dive debriefs, and had decided to do that as a standard practice. So we went back over how things went while relaxing in the sunshine. This was the position Jim conducted the post-dive debriefing in. Couldn't get better than that!
Finally, it was time to bid the Nomash River Cave farewell. We were sad but excited. The fact that this amazing cave existed in our back yard pointed to much more in the future!
On the drive out, a black bear watched us go from the side of the road. Maybe he would get a trout that had swum in the Nomash River Cave. We also recovered the lid from Jim's tote, in case you were wondering. I could not wait for the next expedition!
Vlad, Josh and myself went out to Kelvin Grove for a skill/fun dive. Josh had never been, so it was great to show someone around a site they had never been to before. I even went so far as to put together a written GUEPLAN dive plan, something I realized I did not do enough of lately.
We met on a perfect evening, calm, clear and warm. There was a group coming out of the water when we arrived, and reported seeing a large octopus out in the open. Unfortunately we would not see it.
Our dive plan was simple, 15
minutes to the right at 27m, then a return at 15m giving an average of
21m, and 30 minutes. Then 30 minutes of skills at around 9m-12m. We ran through the Basic 5, valve drill, s-drill, gas switches, and SMB
deployment with a standard ascent to the surface.
Everything went according to plan, and was a lot of fun. On the dive, we saw some large nudibranchs and red fur crabs. The skills all went well, and we planned on trying to keep up the skills dives.
Great fun scootering at Porteau with Dave, Dan and Vlad. John was all
raring to go, but scooter problems arose. Next time John! Visibility was
about 20 feet, but the surface layer was the regular summer crappy-ness.
Vlad found part of a car, and the schools of shiner perch in the
shallows at the end of the dive were very cool. Giant long cod and the
endless craggy boulders of the wall were the highlights. Thanks guys,
can't wait for the next one!
Francois and Bridget moved to Ladysmith recently and had not been to many of the local dive sites. I took advantage of being on the Island and being so close to Madrona to give them a tour of a great dive site. I guess I was practicing those Dive Master skills, guiding local divers!
When I arrived at Madrona, two divers were there already. I recognized the tanks and it turned out they had been staying at Riverbend Resort, the same as Heather and I. It was a great idea, because there were many local dives in the area. They had not been in the water yet, so there was no report on visibility or current to be had yet.
Soon after Francois and Bridget arrived. Bridget wasn't diving today, and planned to relax in the area. Unfortunately, the weather was overcast and threatening, with the odd shower here and there. We did a quick dive briefing on the beach, aiming to hit the main wall. I had found a map of the underwater portion of the dive site here, which seemed pretty good. I was a bit worried because I had not dove Madrona for a while, and was rusty on my directions. I knew you could miss the main wall pretty easily, and I wanted to give Francois the best dive I could. Tides worked out well for us, it was nearing high slack when we planned to get in the water.
I decided to put us in at the smaller V instead of the big V based on the dive map. I figured it seemed easier to find the wall that way, keeping the rocky maze on the right and heading out at 0 degrees. However, in practice this didn't work out as I planned. I didn't realize that the wall went kind of north-south, so when I was swimming us out underwater, I went off to the east too much. This put us in the middle of the sand that I wanted to avoid! Oops. Fortunately I turned us around and headed back, figuring to aim for the middle wall. About 40 minutes in to our dive, I spotted the old scuba cylinders mentioned in a few different directions I had read. We went over, and just past that there was the wall. Yay! Granted we were more than three quarters through our planned dive, but at least we found it. Our average depth was much shallower than we had planned because we had not found the wall, so we had quite a lot of no decompression time. I signaled to Francoise that we'd explore the wall for 10 minutes then head back.
The rock cracks yielded two large octopus, but they were very far in so there was no real way to get any good pictures. I didn't find any wolf eels either. During the whole dive, the stars were the nudibranchs. There were so many, especially the red flabellinas.
(Please note, these are not my images, they are just representative of what we saw)
There were also some new ones in the shallows clinging to the kelp (but they might not have been nudibranchs, they could have been some kind of snail). There was a giant white dendronotid, a leopard dorid and an heath's dorid. The kelp and eel grass were festooned with kelp crabs.
There was also another huge bait ball of small silvery fish. I was able to get some video of it this time, and a picture.
I was very happy that I didn't miss the main wall, for Francois sake. I was going pretty fast during the dive trying to find the wall, so it wasn't the most relaxing one. But, after the dive, the weather cleared and Bridget had made some delicious lunch which we had on the beach. Much more relaxing, thanks!!! Francois had his camera along, but didn't think he got any pictures of note. Next time...
Heather had the Nanaimo Dragonboat festival this weekend, so I took the opportunity to come over and do some diving. I declared all my cylinders as a good citizen should, and got put right at the front of the ferry! Now, I realized though that meant that they would just push the truck off if there was an emergency, but at least I got off first!
We stayed in a yurt at the Riverbend Resort near Parksville, similar to the ones at Porpoise Bay Charters. It was great, there was a fire pit, a gas fireplace, and all the comforts of home, but it felt like you were in a tent! Listening to the rain on the canvas roof was very relaxing.
The first dive I did was with Greg. He had checked the tide charts, and 10 Mile Point was doable. 10 Mile was one of Greg's favorite dive sites, and for good reason. I had done it a few times in the past, and loved it. While often not possible due to the high current, that same current provided food for the explosion of life that lived there. Very very nice for a dive that is basically 10 minutes away from the city. I wished Vancouver had such a dive site. We had an additional advantage in that we planned to bring scooters. This made the dive even nicer, because we could enter the water at Spring Bay and scooter over to 10 Mile. The entry at Spring Bay was so much nicer than the steep rocks at 10 Mile. It also meant that we didn't have to worry so much about timing the tide just right. I got a very nice picture of all our scooters lined up, ready to go.
We were joined by Mark, whom I hadn't seen since the Hornby Island Sea Lion dive. We quickly geared up and were soon scootering over to 10 Mile. Greg ran the navigation, and did a good job as always. It was simple, we took a compass bearing to the point, dropped down and followed the bottom for about 5 minutes. This deposited us right on the wall. We came across another dive team there, but they didn't see us. I had met one of them in the parking lot, his name was Trevor. We stowed our scooters and proceeded to enjoy the fabulous dive: Cabezon, red Irish lords, buffalo sculpin, clown nudibranchs, gumboot chitons, baby Puget sound king crabs, huge schools of bait fish, leopard dorids, the list went on! I got a very small amount of green, grainy video.
These pictures are not mine, but they are representative of what we saw.
Cabezon
Red Irish lord
Clown nudibranch
Baby puget sound king crab
Leopard dorid
The visibility was good, maybe 20 feet. It wasn't the best, but since all the life was up close it didn't matter much. We didn't see any octopus, but Trevor reported during the surface interval that they saw seven! Why couldn't we see even one?
Greg and I did one more dive, and did the same thing again. There was a lot of fishing line and fishing lures littering the wall. You could tell it was a popular fishing spot. All the old line and cast off equipment marred such a nice dive site. That was the only down side. Maybe one day Victoria would make it a marine protected area.
Greg and I finished off a great day of diving with a snack and a hot drink at the Starbucks down the road. I couldn't wait for next time!
Jason Kolba messaged me asking if I could come out diving on Canada Day. It had been forever since we had got together for a dive. The day did not disappoint. It was sunny and clear. The picture above was taken by Jan at the end of the day, but I figured it would be great to put it first! Kevin and Jan of Sea Dragon Charters were their usual awesome hosts. They had a three dive day planned, two dives in the late morning, then a dusk dive and fireworks viewing. I only did the first two dives, as I had already had plans that evening with Heather.
On the boat I was not surprised to see Patricia and Andre.They were putting their new sidemount skills to use. Jason also had his wife Pia join us, but she relaxed in Horseshoe Bay while we were out diving.
On the boat ride, Sewell's Marina had their fast boat out, and were using the Topline's wake for some pretty impressive jumps! It was quite a spectacle.
Kevin joked that Sewell's shouldn't be so strict about the no-wake policy, since they were having so much fun using his.
Our first dive site was Halkett Wall, and it was a great dive. When we dropped down, we investigated the crack and rock ledge for octopus and wolf eels but saw none. However, there was a very nice tiger rockfish there. The giant plumose anemones covered much of the wall, and it was really neat to see the sheer rock covered by them. Steve from one of the other groups spotted and pointed out to us a whole mess of Cockerell's Nudibranchs. I had only seen these once before. Later, when we were talking about it, they apparently were seen up in Port Hardy, and it was interesting to see them this far south. Another interesting part of the dive was swimming through a bait-ball. I didn't know what kind of small silvery fish they were, but it was like the big schools of bait fish you'd see on nature shows. Not as thick, but still nothing like I'd ever seen before. It was good to see the little fish, since that meant more dolphins and other bigger things. We also spied a very large heart crab.
On the second dive, we went to Twin Peaks, a new dive site for me. There were two sea mounds close together, hence the name. Jason had dived it before, so he led the dive. It was a lovely little dive. We came across a swimming nudibranch, as well as a fried egg jelly fish caught and being devoured by anemone. I couldn't see how such a small anemone could eat the whole thing, but I guess a bit at a time works! Talk about being eaten alive. Jason also found an impressive decorated warbonnet in a cloud sponge. Very nice!
Here is some video from the dives.
All in all it was a fabulous way to spend Canada Day. When I was driving out, I was kind of sad that I had not worn red. But I realized my drysuit was red, and I even managed to get the Topline in frame for this picture! Jan made me wear the crazy hat in the second picture, and it also turned out great!
