July 16 NIGHT DIVE
One word Suuuwheeeeet! Ok, one word isn’t enough. Me & my buddies Barry & Murray went for a night dive to Tyee Cove, Vancouver Island, and it was great, awesome, cool, amazing, not enough words to describe it. . . . .
We caught the 7:20 ferry & were in the water just after 10:30 pm. The night was calm, the sky clear, the water flat and the tide high. The first thing we couldn't help but notice, as we were swimming out, were the Bioluminescent lifeforms in the water. Oh man, it was like swimmin’ with sparklers. I’ve read about the glow of divers created by swimming through water & stirring up the light show, but now I finally got to see it. It was intense. I could have stayed there all night waving my hands & fins creating mini underwater fireworks.
The underwater light show was just a taste of the great things to come in this dive.
First let me say that those great little critters that caused the light show also were drawn to our lights, so I’m using that as an excuse for not getting very good pictures. The krill swarmed in front of my camera and made it very hard for it to focus. (I did get a couple of shots of krill though.)
A wonderful array of critters were out on display for us. Some one must have called a sailfin sculpin convention because there were a lot of them… we’d see them 2 or three at a time. I spotted a little northern cling fish in a rock crack in the shallows. Took a couple of shots but the little guy was bouncing around a lot. Barry flashed his light at me to come see something he had found. A little hooded nudibranch on a big kelp leaf. It was yellow with white spots…. I’ve only seen them white & quite large. Maybe this was a youngster.
Another flash of light in my direction & it’s Murray signaling me to come see a giant scale worm. He was moving quite fast, trying to get away from our lights & curiosity. That was only one of many worms we saw including a thick bright red one (that buried itself before I had a chance for a pic) and an amazing blue one…. Still have to look up the name for that one.
Another flash of light my way brings attention to 1 of the 2 octopus we were to see tonight. He was a nice size, stretching out a few feet. He scurried away & we followed him for a minute. Then he stopped & waited. Was he just as curious about us?
We were down around 55fsw when Barry felt a bump against his side….& got a little nervous as he figured out Murray & I were not THAT close to him. Well it was a dogfish that bumped him & now it was swimming around in front of us for a few seconds. . . still bumping into wall… then it swam off into the dark. Can it get any better than this?
More signaling, more “O.K.’ing”, more cool things to share. Two red Irish lords, 2 plainfin midshipmen, a Puget Sound king crab, lots of golf ball crabs & decorators.
It was time to work our way back along the rocky wall, to the shore. As I was passing a deep crevice partially hidden by kelp I caught a flash of colour in my light. In that crack was the fish that looks like a rippling silk red scarf. . . a Red brotula. I frantically got my buddies attention. This elusive & not commonly seen fish had to be shared. Took a few krill filled pictures of it & carried on with our ascent.
Well that topped off a perfect dive. We surfaced & slowly swam back to shore on our backs, looking up at the stars & recapping every exciting thing we saw.
July 17 - Tyee Cove & Wall Beach.
Well, you know you are getting old when a bunch of divers can plan an underwater birthday surprise & slip it right pass ya. It was Murray G's idea to have an plastic banner, a cupcake balloon and masks for everyone to put on underwater. While George distracted me, everyone else set up & I laughed when I turned around to see the birthday bandits. I wonder what the fish thought. Thanks to Murray G, Barry, Dana, Tom, Rick, Wendy, Bruce & George for sharing in my birthday & making it memorable!
On with the dives.... the shallows were thick with algae & krill floating around. Viz got better deeper. It was a totally different dive from the night before, still nice. Saw a couple of heart crabs, a tiger rockfish, ling cod, greenlings, a big school of tube snouts and schools of perch in the kelp. I think the coolest thing was the tiny baby painted greenling I found sitting on a sea cucumber.
We packed up headed over to Wall Beach for our second dive. Had lunch on the beach & relaxed for a while. Unfortunately my ears wouldnt clear on my descent for the second dive so just stayed in the shallow shoreline & snooped around. The others had a great dive searching for & finding big critters.
Afterward we all got together for a BBQ. Great food, great people, a great time. And Wendy made a cake, appropriately decorated. . . with a scuba diver! Thanks all!
Fabulous pics and a great way to share them!
Sounds like the best birthday ever. I felt like I was right there with you. Glad to see you're still diving and taking great photos. Keep it up!
Looking forward to the continuing chronicles.
Sarah
Posted by: Smootie | August 17, 2005 at 09:46 PM
Hi! This is Fan at Marine Conservation Biology Institute (www.mcbi.org) based in the Seattle area. Your blog is very intriguing. I have a few questions for you. Could you please contact me at fan@mcbi.org? I look forward to hearing from you. Many thanks!
Posted by: Fan | May 24, 2006 at 01:19 PM