bwerb
Hoser/English Translator, eh
You know you love scuba diving when...
I had one of those diving days today that I just thought I would share. My dive was nothing out of the ordinary or really anything that you would stand-up and say WOW about, it just felt right. Here's what happened...
Nurseshark and I were planning on doing a two tank dive today in a local training Marine reserve...just get wet and practice some drills and bouyancy control etc. Nurseshark has been having some ear clearing problems so we decided that we would just sink as soon as we hit the water and we'd slowly swim down as her ears allowed...well, that was the plan...a friend dropped by to pick-up something early thismorning, they asked what we were doing and said "hey, great, do you want to go boat diving? I would like to put my 90hp zodiac rib in the water today and would love to take you guys out." Well...change the plans, we're going boat diving.
So, we stop by LDS number one to pick-up tanks...wouldn't you know it...closed...Canadian holiday. On to plan 2...the yellow pages. We found a second LDS...1/2 price Al 80's...we'll remember them for next time. Supernice shop, 100% women owned and operated too!
Tanks in trunk, we headed out to meet our friend at the put-in...uh-oh...lowest tide I have ever seen! The concrete boat ramp ends like 100 meters from the ocean and currently there is some yahoo with his two sons in a pick-up seeing how far they can dig the back end of the truck into the sand. We offered to help and I'm sorry...this guy was definitely grandfathered into his boating licence as I'm amazed he was able to figure out which end of the truck to hook the boat trailer too. Anyhow, after several other passers by showed-up and a guy with a huge pickup arrived, we were able to rescue Darwin's little protege from his own demise. Our friend shrugged his shoulders and apologized for not reading the tide charts...oh, well, there will be another time and place...I'll report on that when it happens.
So, three hours later...back to plan A. We headed out to Whiteclife for a dive. I guess the whole Canadian long weekend thing was shared with every large family reunion in BC as they all showed-up with their dogs and mother-in-laws in tow to our typical training beach...dang...when the West Vancouver police department is busy ticketing every car which isn't parked exactly between the yellow lines, you know it's not a good day to double park while you unload. At this point Nurseshark says "I get the feeling we're not supposed to dive today."
No. I'm not taking no for an answer. We must find a place to dive. So, we start the drive out of the park and through the trees, I see a group of divers swimming out in a bay. We then pass a small hidden trailhead to the beach below...we slide into a parking spot on the dirt beside the road just vacated by an ocean kayaker coming up from their paddle. We couldn't be closer to the trail if we wanted to...things are looking up at last!
We get out of the car, gear-up and down to the beach we go. Nice beach, never been here before. Nurseshark starts walking into the water while I pull on my hood and gloves. I turn around and she's on her butt in the sand in 6" of water. What? Turns out that the tide is so far out that there is no support underneath it. She sunk into 18" of quicksand and toppled over. OK, just one more little delay. I hauled her back up and we re-considered our entrance. A few minutes later we were both in the water kicking out...I won't go into the fin reajustment to fit the loaner drysuit while the other one is undergoing warranty work...so onto the dive...
Here it is, we are finally diving. Our dive today consisted of a mostly sandy and weedy bottom which went from 6 feet deep down to 24 feet deep. Sounds exciting huh. Well you know what? It was a great dive! The water was so warm 59 degrees which is cookin' for us!. Bouyancy was fantastic, we skimmed along just above the bottom kicking up absolutely no sediment (did the duck head to chest thing to check). Nurseshark's ears cleared and "popped" no problem at all. It appeared at first to be a boring sandy bottom but because we were so shallow, the sunlight really lit up the bottom and we saw some great stuff.
A great big ling cod scooted out of the weeds in front of us as Nurseshark went to touch his tail; then we saw the crabs scurrying along the bottom. A tiny little white jellyfish was seen hovering in front of our faces glittering in the sun. Then the little puffs of sediment below us in the sand resolved to the faint outline of a crab's mouth...a finger behind him in the sand released a huge dungeness crab who shook off the sand and took off to find safety. Little bitty flounders were everywhere. They blend in totally perfectly with the bottom, then they pop-up and swim away. We then saw a HUGE flounder...I've never seen one this big before. We both thought he was dead and as Nurseshark moved to touch him, SCOOT...he's away. We turned the dive and on the way back saw a massive 5 arm starfish wrapped around an indescernable decaying fish body. A dungeness crab in aggression display posture kept darting in under the starfish to grab bits of meat for himself. Then we saw a little orange tube worm with all his feeders exposed to the sea pulling in microscopic little algae and plankton. We ended up right along the rocky wall along the side of the bay and saw schools of multicolored little fish. Red, brown and yellow stripes, perch or something? I don't know. Even the discarded clamshells were covered in hundreds of feeding barnacles making the entire shell look like it is alive. We swam right back into the beach and surfaced.
What a fantastic dive. It just felt right. The weather was great, the company was awesome and the little tiny bits of life were phenomenal to take the time to really see.
So, all in all, diving is about the experience. Sometimes the most simple little things are the most amazing. I hope everyone else had great dives too and we can all realize that sometimes it's just great to be in the water on a sunny day.
Brian
I had one of those diving days today that I just thought I would share. My dive was nothing out of the ordinary or really anything that you would stand-up and say WOW about, it just felt right. Here's what happened...
Nurseshark and I were planning on doing a two tank dive today in a local training Marine reserve...just get wet and practice some drills and bouyancy control etc. Nurseshark has been having some ear clearing problems so we decided that we would just sink as soon as we hit the water and we'd slowly swim down as her ears allowed...well, that was the plan...a friend dropped by to pick-up something early thismorning, they asked what we were doing and said "hey, great, do you want to go boat diving? I would like to put my 90hp zodiac rib in the water today and would love to take you guys out." Well...change the plans, we're going boat diving.
So, we stop by LDS number one to pick-up tanks...wouldn't you know it...closed...Canadian holiday. On to plan 2...the yellow pages. We found a second LDS...1/2 price Al 80's...we'll remember them for next time. Supernice shop, 100% women owned and operated too!
Tanks in trunk, we headed out to meet our friend at the put-in...uh-oh...lowest tide I have ever seen! The concrete boat ramp ends like 100 meters from the ocean and currently there is some yahoo with his two sons in a pick-up seeing how far they can dig the back end of the truck into the sand. We offered to help and I'm sorry...this guy was definitely grandfathered into his boating licence as I'm amazed he was able to figure out which end of the truck to hook the boat trailer too. Anyhow, after several other passers by showed-up and a guy with a huge pickup arrived, we were able to rescue Darwin's little protege from his own demise. Our friend shrugged his shoulders and apologized for not reading the tide charts...oh, well, there will be another time and place...I'll report on that when it happens.
So, three hours later...back to plan A. We headed out to Whiteclife for a dive. I guess the whole Canadian long weekend thing was shared with every large family reunion in BC as they all showed-up with their dogs and mother-in-laws in tow to our typical training beach...dang...when the West Vancouver police department is busy ticketing every car which isn't parked exactly between the yellow lines, you know it's not a good day to double park while you unload. At this point Nurseshark says "I get the feeling we're not supposed to dive today."
No. I'm not taking no for an answer. We must find a place to dive. So, we start the drive out of the park and through the trees, I see a group of divers swimming out in a bay. We then pass a small hidden trailhead to the beach below...we slide into a parking spot on the dirt beside the road just vacated by an ocean kayaker coming up from their paddle. We couldn't be closer to the trail if we wanted to...things are looking up at last!
We get out of the car, gear-up and down to the beach we go. Nice beach, never been here before. Nurseshark starts walking into the water while I pull on my hood and gloves. I turn around and she's on her butt in the sand in 6" of water. What? Turns out that the tide is so far out that there is no support underneath it. She sunk into 18" of quicksand and toppled over. OK, just one more little delay. I hauled her back up and we re-considered our entrance. A few minutes later we were both in the water kicking out...I won't go into the fin reajustment to fit the loaner drysuit while the other one is undergoing warranty work...so onto the dive...
Here it is, we are finally diving. Our dive today consisted of a mostly sandy and weedy bottom which went from 6 feet deep down to 24 feet deep. Sounds exciting huh. Well you know what? It was a great dive! The water was so warm 59 degrees which is cookin' for us!. Bouyancy was fantastic, we skimmed along just above the bottom kicking up absolutely no sediment (did the duck head to chest thing to check). Nurseshark's ears cleared and "popped" no problem at all. It appeared at first to be a boring sandy bottom but because we were so shallow, the sunlight really lit up the bottom and we saw some great stuff.
A great big ling cod scooted out of the weeds in front of us as Nurseshark went to touch his tail; then we saw the crabs scurrying along the bottom. A tiny little white jellyfish was seen hovering in front of our faces glittering in the sun. Then the little puffs of sediment below us in the sand resolved to the faint outline of a crab's mouth...a finger behind him in the sand released a huge dungeness crab who shook off the sand and took off to find safety. Little bitty flounders were everywhere. They blend in totally perfectly with the bottom, then they pop-up and swim away. We then saw a HUGE flounder...I've never seen one this big before. We both thought he was dead and as Nurseshark moved to touch him, SCOOT...he's away. We turned the dive and on the way back saw a massive 5 arm starfish wrapped around an indescernable decaying fish body. A dungeness crab in aggression display posture kept darting in under the starfish to grab bits of meat for himself. Then we saw a little orange tube worm with all his feeders exposed to the sea pulling in microscopic little algae and plankton. We ended up right along the rocky wall along the side of the bay and saw schools of multicolored little fish. Red, brown and yellow stripes, perch or something? I don't know. Even the discarded clamshells were covered in hundreds of feeding barnacles making the entire shell look like it is alive. We swam right back into the beach and surfaced.
What a fantastic dive. It just felt right. The weather was great, the company was awesome and the little tiny bits of life were phenomenal to take the time to really see.
So, all in all, diving is about the experience. Sometimes the most simple little things are the most amazing. I hope everyone else had great dives too and we can all realize that sometimes it's just great to be in the water on a sunny day.
Brian
