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Cheng and I just returned from an incredible three days of diving at Quadra Island ... just across Discovery Passage from the VI town of Campbell River. It was some of the most exciting and interesting northwest diving we've ever encountered.
Campbell River is roughly 100 miles north of Nanaimo, and then there's a short ferry ride over to Quadra Island ... so it's pretty close to an all-day trip to get there from the Seattle area. But we found it to be well worth the effort.
Our trip was booked with Abyssal Charters, who have a lodge just a minute or so from the ferry dock. We were part of a fairly large group consisting of five couples and eight single guys ... two who came to fish off the boat while everyone else was diving. Since the lodge doesn't accommodate that many, we and another couple stayed at the nearby Whiskey Point Resort ... a hotel overlooking the bay. We enjoyed this immensely, and had great views that included quite a lot of eagle-watching. The lodge was a short 5-minute walk (or 1-minute drive) from the hotel, and so it was quite convenient to go from hotel to lodge for our meals and socializing.
Although our group was large, it was accommodated on two boats ... so there was never a sense of being crowded. Indeed, four of our six dives we did with both boats and because the dive sites were walls, it was easy to spread out ... sometimes we didn't enounter another buddy team the entire dive.
All of our dives were on the southwest side of Quadra Island ... within the swift-moving waters of Discovery Passage. Even though we dove every dive at slack, most were drift dives ... often changing from one direction to the other during the rather short slack intervals. With one exception, the dive sites were walls. The exception was the HCMS Columbia ... sister ship to the Saskatchewan ... although for a number of reasons it reminded me more of the Chaudierre. I'll get to that more in detail later. Our dive sites were (in the order we did them) ...
Row & Be Damned
This was a breathtaking dive ... possibly the best overall dive of the entire trip. A short 10-minute boat ride from the dock we arrived at a small cliff that peters out to jumbled rocks on both sides ... that's the above-water view. Below the water the wall descends to depth well beyond anything we attempted. When we arrived, looking down, you could tell the water was moving along at a pretty good clip. We suited up, got our dive briefing, and dropped off the boat to begin our joyride.
The fun began as soon as we started our descent. Water clarity was almost clear, and as we dropped down to our max depth of about 80 fsw we were being swept past a sheer wall that was totally covered in life. There wasn't one square inch of bare space anywhere on this wall. The predominant life form was strawberry anemones, which appeared in dense patches everywhere. But there were also abundant sponges of many varieties ... trumpet sponges waving in the current, vase sponges with little critters hiding inside, cloud sponges from about 40 fsw downward, and tennis-ball sponges looking like grey images of their namesake. Wherever the anemones and sponges left a foothold, hydroids, corals, and anemones claimed a homestead.
Vis was about 60-70 feet ... between the outstanding life forms, the vis, and the current, this place could best be described as a "cold-water Cozumel". It was outstanding! One of the odd things I noticed is that the deeper we went the more intense the life got. Perhaps that's because the water clarity allowed light to penetrate so easily. Indeed, I was almost taken by surprise when we reached our agreed-upon max depth of 80 fsw ... I still didn't really need my light at all.
We drifted along the wall for about 13-14 minutes when I noticed we were slowing down. After just a few fin kicks, the current suddenly started moving the other way. OK, no worries, just turn around, ascend a little, and go with the flow. We slowly worked our way up to about 55-60 fsw and rode the current back the other way for a while. After about 10 minutes, it turned again, heading us back in our original direction. Now this was funny ... I felt like I was taking a switchback up a cliff. So we let the current take us back along the wall ... coming up to a depth of about 40 fsw. At this depth ... oddly, the density of life started petering out and there were actually some small patches of rock showing. The predominant life form up here was urchins, plumose anemones, and kelp. Large schools of small fish moved around us like silvery clouds, sometimes reducing visibility to just a few feet with their glittering reflections. As we ascended to safety stop depth the current switched around yet again .... sending us back in the direction of our entry point. Indeed, when we finally surfaced and looked at shore, we were quite close to where we'd started. Imagine that for a drift dive ... this was one of the oddest, and most beautiful ones I've ever done.
Afterward we returned to the lodge for lunch, and to wait until mid-afternoon for SBE ... our next dive was some 5-1/2 hours after the first.
Steep Island Wall
This was our shortest, and most difficult dive of the trip. When we arrived the water was moving so swiftly that it was creating tiny whirlpools as it moved past our boat. Cheng took one look at that and decided not to take her camera ... despite Cap'n Earl's assurance that it was mostly surface-current.
As we descended, the current did indeed peter out to a nice, easy drift dive. I couldn't help but think that Cheng wished she'd brought the camera as this wall proved to be quite as prolific in life as the previous had been. We descended down through a huge patch of purple tube worms ... once again to our target max depth of around 80 fsw ... and had an enjoyable drift along the wall till once again the current reversed direction and started pushing us back toward where we started. We began a slow ascent at that point to around 50 fsw, and maintained that depth till we came back to the purple tube worm field. At that point I was thinking that if we ascend a bit we'll reverse direction again, like we had on the previous dive, so signaled Cheng to go up a little. But as we ascended the current only got stronger, pushing us past our entry point. Since we had entered on the north side of the island, I was a little concerned about getting pushed past the island altogether and ending up somewhere out in Discovery Passage ... so I motioned for Cheng to head up to safety-stop depth. As we ascended, we started running into turbulence that was pushing us every which way but loose. First we shot up to about 9 fsw ... then down to 27 fsw. Strangely, looking below me I could see a school of rockfish trying to swim up the wall but heading downward away from me. Scary ... if they can't do it, I don't want to be there. I motioned for Cheng to grab ahold of a kelp stem and hang on, which we both did. The current changed again ... this time trying to pull us away from the wall ... but we hung on until we got into another up-eddy. Then we let go, watching our depth till we hit about 13-15 fsw and grabbed more kelp. Hanging on for our safety stop wasn't the most fun I had on this trip, but the current at that point was only trying to pull us out away from the wall (rather than up or down), so I wasn't too worried. As soon as we completed our three minutes, we let go and ascended. In all the turbulence, I neglected to look up as we ascended ... and damn near ascended right into the boat's propellors! Fortunately, the captain had seen us coming and turned them off ... but I sure didn't know that at the time, and made a LOT of noise making sure he knew I was there. Indeed I was so close that if he'd turned the motors from side-to-side he'd have hit me with them.
We came up after only a 28-minute dive, feeling pretty beat-up and not too happy with the way we'd handled the dive. It was humbling ... I like to think I can handle myself better than that. But I was surprised to see about half our group already on the boat, and others coming up waaay off the island ... it appears everyone else had difficulties on this dive too. One team actually got swept into that swifter down current I'd noticed and went from their safety-stop back down to more than 80 fsw before getting under control. This was a tough dive ... beautiful, but tough.
The good news is that for the rest of the week-end the current slacked off with each progressive dive, and we had a series of great dives.
Middle of the Road
This dive was just off Whiskey Point ... about 5 minutes from the dock. We dropped down into a steep boulder field and followed a westerly heading to the top of a wall that started at about 50 fsw. Cheng and I decided to head a little deeper this time, and maxed at around 100 fsw. As with the previous day's dives, the wall was prolific with strawberry anemones, cup corals, sponges, hydroids, and other forms of inverterbrate life. I noticed more fish on this dive than I had the previous day ... predominantly quillback rockfish and kelp greenling, but also a few lings and cabezons. Once again we got swept southward for a short while, then the current reversed itself and took us north. As with the previous dives, Cheng and I began our ascent when the current turned us around, and hit the top of the wall about 30 minutes into the dive. Cheng's octopus was leaking on this dive, and so when we got to the top of the wall we headed up through the boulders to a shallower depth ... and when she got down to about 700 psi we headed up for our safety stop. I still had almost 2000 psi in my tank, so after we surfaced I waited till she was on the ladder, then descended for a short bit of solo diving. There was some interesting structure above the wall that I wanted to explore ... gullies and valleys with kelp forest looming above ... and I spent another 15 minutes or so just swimming around looking into crevices and crannies to see if I could find an octopus or wolf eel (this site's supposed to have them) ... but without success. Vis was quite good ... perhaps 50 feet or so ... and at one point I noticed the fishing lure from the boat above me dropping down to the bottom perhaps 20 feet away. I watched, fascinated, as with each "jig" the lure would rise 3-4 feet off the bottom and would be chased by two or three kelp greenling. However, I also noticed that the lure was moving in my direction, and being down there alone I had no desire to get hooked ... so I swam away toward another little gulley, then followed the slope up through the kelp stems to a clear space where I could ascend to a safety stop. Hovering at 15 fsw I was once again surrounded by those tiny little fish in a school so thick it limited my visibility to just a few feet. Surfacing after my safety-stop I did a complete spin looking for my boat ... and it was nowhere in sight. Hmmm, I thought ... they did tell me it was OK to go back down for a while. I'm sure they wouldn't just leave me out here. In fact, they had rounded the point to pick up another pair of divers ... and after swimming out from shore for a couple minutes I could see them perhaps a quarter-mile away. Both boats were over there, and when I signalled, the smaller boat came to pick me up. So I rode home on a different boat than I'd rode out on ... but that was quite OK except that I had to transfer all my gear back to the bigger boat after we docked.
April Point Wall
This was another wall that you had to swim out to ... again with the top of the wall starting at 40-50 fsw and descending to who-knows-where. We descended into a kelp forest at about 30 fsw, took a southwesterly heading, and easily found the wall. This time the current turned us around only about two minutes after we started down the wall ... once again heading us along at a leisurely drift that was easy for Cheng to stop when she wanted a picture. This dive Cheng had switched over to her 1:1 macro lens (up till now she'd been using her close-up lens), and I teased her that now we'd find the big stuff. Sure enough, about 15 minutes into the dive I noticed her head up over the wall ... she'd spotted a big field of sea pens, and she loves taking pictures of sea pens. So up we went ... off the wall and into the shallower boulder field. While she was taking pictures I noticed a rock with yellowish-looking legs sticking out ... turned out to be the biggest Puget Sound King Crab I've ever seen. Scooping it up with both hands I held it up so Cheng could get a picture of a tiny portion of it's mouth and eyes ... with beautiful purple and yellow markings. About that time, another couple (Kaye and Dave) swam along and I showed them the crab ... then put it back where I found it and we proceeded up the slope. Cheng found more sea pens, and some lovely nudibranchs, to take pictures of ... and I found another monster-sized PSKC to play with. Eventually we made our way back into the kelp forest and ascended to our safety-stop. Amazingly, the current had completely stopped ... for the first time of the trip we weren't drifting. We did a long, leisurely safety stop enjoying the drifting fronds of kelp all around us and all the little fish it attracted, then surfaced. At that point I apparently gave the captain the wrong "OK" signal, and he ignored us while we surface-swam about 200 yards out to the boat. A short digression here ... if you visit Abyssal, make sure you get all the "rules" straight. They insist on you using one "OK" signal (hand touching head) to signal one boat, and a different "OK" signal (both hands above head in an O) to signal the other boat. Use the wrong signal and your boat won't come get you. However, with no current and calm water the surface swim was an easy one.
HCMS Columbia
This is a 366-foot destroyer sunk in 1996 off the east coast of tiny Maud Island ... just a short distance from Seymour Narrows. It's in a protected cove, so there's minimal current. However, that means there's also less life here than all our other dives. The ship lists about 40-degrees to port, and lies in 90-120 feet of water, with the bow in the deeper end and stern in the shallower end. If you've evern done the Chaudierre, up in Sechelt, that description will sound awfully familiar. We dropped down the center cable to the port side lifeboat davits ... alongside the wheelhouse at around 75 fsw. From there we made our way to the stern, then dropped down to the mudline to check out the screws and rudder of the ship. Coming back up the starboard side, we made our way to the bow, where the boat's massive guns are covered in more life than most of the rest of the ship. After taking a few photos, we swam around the wheelhouse, then made our way back to the cable and began our ascent. I've heard a lot about this ship, but frankly after doing the Chaudierre, Saskatchewan, and Cape Breton, it was your basic "been there, done that" kind of dive.
Copper Cliffs
Our final dive of the trip was a great one. This place is a serious wall-lover's wall. It starts about 300 feet above sea level and plunges down another 100 feet or more beneath the surface. Eagles circling above the cliffs provided plenty of entertainment as we waited for the current to slow down so we could begin our dive. Finally, the first pair took the plunge, and we all watched as they descended. I could make out their yellow tanks for a long time as they dropped down the wall, and it was obvious even before we got in the water that vis on this dive was going to be exceptional. We timed it just right, and there was no current at all when Cheng and I started our descent ... we could choose our direction on this dive, and headed northward along the main portion of the wall. Although this wall isn't as prolific with life as the others we did, there's still plenty to delight the senses. Anemones, cup corals, and cloud sponges provide homes for nudibranchs, tiny crabs, and painted greenlings. Sea squirts, ascidians, nipple sponges, and soft corals cling to tiny cracks and ledges in the sheer wall. It was fun to actually have to use our fins and pick our own direction for once ... and we zig-zagged from a depth of about 85 fsw upward, slowly covering the wall in either direction as we worked our way to the surface. Once again we ended up doing our safety-stop within the confines of a massive school of tiny shiners ... visibility being reduced to just a few feet by their silvery reflections. It's a surreal feeling, and quite enjoyable when you don't have to worry about where the current's taking you. We just hovered there for about 5 minutes ... not really being in any hurry to end the dive. Finally we came up near the boat, and climbed aboard for the ride back to the lodge.
We left Quadra Island on the 2 PM ferry, and made it home by around 10 PM ... with good connections and a mere 15-minute border crossing. Altogether a wonderful trip, with a great group of divers. I'd recommend both Quadra Island and Abyssal Charters highly to anyone who's comfortable doing this kind of diving. There's probably more life-per-square-inch on these walls than anywhere I've yet dove ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Campbell River is roughly 100 miles north of Nanaimo, and then there's a short ferry ride over to Quadra Island ... so it's pretty close to an all-day trip to get there from the Seattle area. But we found it to be well worth the effort.
Our trip was booked with Abyssal Charters, who have a lodge just a minute or so from the ferry dock. We were part of a fairly large group consisting of five couples and eight single guys ... two who came to fish off the boat while everyone else was diving. Since the lodge doesn't accommodate that many, we and another couple stayed at the nearby Whiskey Point Resort ... a hotel overlooking the bay. We enjoyed this immensely, and had great views that included quite a lot of eagle-watching. The lodge was a short 5-minute walk (or 1-minute drive) from the hotel, and so it was quite convenient to go from hotel to lodge for our meals and socializing.
Although our group was large, it was accommodated on two boats ... so there was never a sense of being crowded. Indeed, four of our six dives we did with both boats and because the dive sites were walls, it was easy to spread out ... sometimes we didn't enounter another buddy team the entire dive.
All of our dives were on the southwest side of Quadra Island ... within the swift-moving waters of Discovery Passage. Even though we dove every dive at slack, most were drift dives ... often changing from one direction to the other during the rather short slack intervals. With one exception, the dive sites were walls. The exception was the HCMS Columbia ... sister ship to the Saskatchewan ... although for a number of reasons it reminded me more of the Chaudierre. I'll get to that more in detail later. Our dive sites were (in the order we did them) ...
Row & Be Damned
This was a breathtaking dive ... possibly the best overall dive of the entire trip. A short 10-minute boat ride from the dock we arrived at a small cliff that peters out to jumbled rocks on both sides ... that's the above-water view. Below the water the wall descends to depth well beyond anything we attempted. When we arrived, looking down, you could tell the water was moving along at a pretty good clip. We suited up, got our dive briefing, and dropped off the boat to begin our joyride.
The fun began as soon as we started our descent. Water clarity was almost clear, and as we dropped down to our max depth of about 80 fsw we were being swept past a sheer wall that was totally covered in life. There wasn't one square inch of bare space anywhere on this wall. The predominant life form was strawberry anemones, which appeared in dense patches everywhere. But there were also abundant sponges of many varieties ... trumpet sponges waving in the current, vase sponges with little critters hiding inside, cloud sponges from about 40 fsw downward, and tennis-ball sponges looking like grey images of their namesake. Wherever the anemones and sponges left a foothold, hydroids, corals, and anemones claimed a homestead.
Vis was about 60-70 feet ... between the outstanding life forms, the vis, and the current, this place could best be described as a "cold-water Cozumel". It was outstanding! One of the odd things I noticed is that the deeper we went the more intense the life got. Perhaps that's because the water clarity allowed light to penetrate so easily. Indeed, I was almost taken by surprise when we reached our agreed-upon max depth of 80 fsw ... I still didn't really need my light at all.
We drifted along the wall for about 13-14 minutes when I noticed we were slowing down. After just a few fin kicks, the current suddenly started moving the other way. OK, no worries, just turn around, ascend a little, and go with the flow. We slowly worked our way up to about 55-60 fsw and rode the current back the other way for a while. After about 10 minutes, it turned again, heading us back in our original direction. Now this was funny ... I felt like I was taking a switchback up a cliff. So we let the current take us back along the wall ... coming up to a depth of about 40 fsw. At this depth ... oddly, the density of life started petering out and there were actually some small patches of rock showing. The predominant life form up here was urchins, plumose anemones, and kelp. Large schools of small fish moved around us like silvery clouds, sometimes reducing visibility to just a few feet with their glittering reflections. As we ascended to safety stop depth the current switched around yet again .... sending us back in the direction of our entry point. Indeed, when we finally surfaced and looked at shore, we were quite close to where we'd started. Imagine that for a drift dive ... this was one of the oddest, and most beautiful ones I've ever done.
Afterward we returned to the lodge for lunch, and to wait until mid-afternoon for SBE ... our next dive was some 5-1/2 hours after the first.
Steep Island Wall
This was our shortest, and most difficult dive of the trip. When we arrived the water was moving so swiftly that it was creating tiny whirlpools as it moved past our boat. Cheng took one look at that and decided not to take her camera ... despite Cap'n Earl's assurance that it was mostly surface-current.
As we descended, the current did indeed peter out to a nice, easy drift dive. I couldn't help but think that Cheng wished she'd brought the camera as this wall proved to be quite as prolific in life as the previous had been. We descended down through a huge patch of purple tube worms ... once again to our target max depth of around 80 fsw ... and had an enjoyable drift along the wall till once again the current reversed direction and started pushing us back toward where we started. We began a slow ascent at that point to around 50 fsw, and maintained that depth till we came back to the purple tube worm field. At that point I was thinking that if we ascend a bit we'll reverse direction again, like we had on the previous dive, so signaled Cheng to go up a little. But as we ascended the current only got stronger, pushing us past our entry point. Since we had entered on the north side of the island, I was a little concerned about getting pushed past the island altogether and ending up somewhere out in Discovery Passage ... so I motioned for Cheng to head up to safety-stop depth. As we ascended, we started running into turbulence that was pushing us every which way but loose. First we shot up to about 9 fsw ... then down to 27 fsw. Strangely, looking below me I could see a school of rockfish trying to swim up the wall but heading downward away from me. Scary ... if they can't do it, I don't want to be there. I motioned for Cheng to grab ahold of a kelp stem and hang on, which we both did. The current changed again ... this time trying to pull us away from the wall ... but we hung on until we got into another up-eddy. Then we let go, watching our depth till we hit about 13-15 fsw and grabbed more kelp. Hanging on for our safety stop wasn't the most fun I had on this trip, but the current at that point was only trying to pull us out away from the wall (rather than up or down), so I wasn't too worried. As soon as we completed our three minutes, we let go and ascended. In all the turbulence, I neglected to look up as we ascended ... and damn near ascended right into the boat's propellors! Fortunately, the captain had seen us coming and turned them off ... but I sure didn't know that at the time, and made a LOT of noise making sure he knew I was there. Indeed I was so close that if he'd turned the motors from side-to-side he'd have hit me with them.
We came up after only a 28-minute dive, feeling pretty beat-up and not too happy with the way we'd handled the dive. It was humbling ... I like to think I can handle myself better than that. But I was surprised to see about half our group already on the boat, and others coming up waaay off the island ... it appears everyone else had difficulties on this dive too. One team actually got swept into that swifter down current I'd noticed and went from their safety-stop back down to more than 80 fsw before getting under control. This was a tough dive ... beautiful, but tough.
The good news is that for the rest of the week-end the current slacked off with each progressive dive, and we had a series of great dives.
Middle of the Road
This dive was just off Whiskey Point ... about 5 minutes from the dock. We dropped down into a steep boulder field and followed a westerly heading to the top of a wall that started at about 50 fsw. Cheng and I decided to head a little deeper this time, and maxed at around 100 fsw. As with the previous day's dives, the wall was prolific with strawberry anemones, cup corals, sponges, hydroids, and other forms of inverterbrate life. I noticed more fish on this dive than I had the previous day ... predominantly quillback rockfish and kelp greenling, but also a few lings and cabezons. Once again we got swept southward for a short while, then the current reversed itself and took us north. As with the previous dives, Cheng and I began our ascent when the current turned us around, and hit the top of the wall about 30 minutes into the dive. Cheng's octopus was leaking on this dive, and so when we got to the top of the wall we headed up through the boulders to a shallower depth ... and when she got down to about 700 psi we headed up for our safety stop. I still had almost 2000 psi in my tank, so after we surfaced I waited till she was on the ladder, then descended for a short bit of solo diving. There was some interesting structure above the wall that I wanted to explore ... gullies and valleys with kelp forest looming above ... and I spent another 15 minutes or so just swimming around looking into crevices and crannies to see if I could find an octopus or wolf eel (this site's supposed to have them) ... but without success. Vis was quite good ... perhaps 50 feet or so ... and at one point I noticed the fishing lure from the boat above me dropping down to the bottom perhaps 20 feet away. I watched, fascinated, as with each "jig" the lure would rise 3-4 feet off the bottom and would be chased by two or three kelp greenling. However, I also noticed that the lure was moving in my direction, and being down there alone I had no desire to get hooked ... so I swam away toward another little gulley, then followed the slope up through the kelp stems to a clear space where I could ascend to a safety stop. Hovering at 15 fsw I was once again surrounded by those tiny little fish in a school so thick it limited my visibility to just a few feet. Surfacing after my safety-stop I did a complete spin looking for my boat ... and it was nowhere in sight. Hmmm, I thought ... they did tell me it was OK to go back down for a while. I'm sure they wouldn't just leave me out here. In fact, they had rounded the point to pick up another pair of divers ... and after swimming out from shore for a couple minutes I could see them perhaps a quarter-mile away. Both boats were over there, and when I signalled, the smaller boat came to pick me up. So I rode home on a different boat than I'd rode out on ... but that was quite OK except that I had to transfer all my gear back to the bigger boat after we docked.
April Point Wall
This was another wall that you had to swim out to ... again with the top of the wall starting at 40-50 fsw and descending to who-knows-where. We descended into a kelp forest at about 30 fsw, took a southwesterly heading, and easily found the wall. This time the current turned us around only about two minutes after we started down the wall ... once again heading us along at a leisurely drift that was easy for Cheng to stop when she wanted a picture. This dive Cheng had switched over to her 1:1 macro lens (up till now she'd been using her close-up lens), and I teased her that now we'd find the big stuff. Sure enough, about 15 minutes into the dive I noticed her head up over the wall ... she'd spotted a big field of sea pens, and she loves taking pictures of sea pens. So up we went ... off the wall and into the shallower boulder field. While she was taking pictures I noticed a rock with yellowish-looking legs sticking out ... turned out to be the biggest Puget Sound King Crab I've ever seen. Scooping it up with both hands I held it up so Cheng could get a picture of a tiny portion of it's mouth and eyes ... with beautiful purple and yellow markings. About that time, another couple (Kaye and Dave) swam along and I showed them the crab ... then put it back where I found it and we proceeded up the slope. Cheng found more sea pens, and some lovely nudibranchs, to take pictures of ... and I found another monster-sized PSKC to play with. Eventually we made our way back into the kelp forest and ascended to our safety-stop. Amazingly, the current had completely stopped ... for the first time of the trip we weren't drifting. We did a long, leisurely safety stop enjoying the drifting fronds of kelp all around us and all the little fish it attracted, then surfaced. At that point I apparently gave the captain the wrong "OK" signal, and he ignored us while we surface-swam about 200 yards out to the boat. A short digression here ... if you visit Abyssal, make sure you get all the "rules" straight. They insist on you using one "OK" signal (hand touching head) to signal one boat, and a different "OK" signal (both hands above head in an O) to signal the other boat. Use the wrong signal and your boat won't come get you. However, with no current and calm water the surface swim was an easy one.
HCMS Columbia
This is a 366-foot destroyer sunk in 1996 off the east coast of tiny Maud Island ... just a short distance from Seymour Narrows. It's in a protected cove, so there's minimal current. However, that means there's also less life here than all our other dives. The ship lists about 40-degrees to port, and lies in 90-120 feet of water, with the bow in the deeper end and stern in the shallower end. If you've evern done the Chaudierre, up in Sechelt, that description will sound awfully familiar. We dropped down the center cable to the port side lifeboat davits ... alongside the wheelhouse at around 75 fsw. From there we made our way to the stern, then dropped down to the mudline to check out the screws and rudder of the ship. Coming back up the starboard side, we made our way to the bow, where the boat's massive guns are covered in more life than most of the rest of the ship. After taking a few photos, we swam around the wheelhouse, then made our way back to the cable and began our ascent. I've heard a lot about this ship, but frankly after doing the Chaudierre, Saskatchewan, and Cape Breton, it was your basic "been there, done that" kind of dive.
Copper Cliffs
Our final dive of the trip was a great one. This place is a serious wall-lover's wall. It starts about 300 feet above sea level and plunges down another 100 feet or more beneath the surface. Eagles circling above the cliffs provided plenty of entertainment as we waited for the current to slow down so we could begin our dive. Finally, the first pair took the plunge, and we all watched as they descended. I could make out their yellow tanks for a long time as they dropped down the wall, and it was obvious even before we got in the water that vis on this dive was going to be exceptional. We timed it just right, and there was no current at all when Cheng and I started our descent ... we could choose our direction on this dive, and headed northward along the main portion of the wall. Although this wall isn't as prolific with life as the others we did, there's still plenty to delight the senses. Anemones, cup corals, and cloud sponges provide homes for nudibranchs, tiny crabs, and painted greenlings. Sea squirts, ascidians, nipple sponges, and soft corals cling to tiny cracks and ledges in the sheer wall. It was fun to actually have to use our fins and pick our own direction for once ... and we zig-zagged from a depth of about 85 fsw upward, slowly covering the wall in either direction as we worked our way to the surface. Once again we ended up doing our safety-stop within the confines of a massive school of tiny shiners ... visibility being reduced to just a few feet by their silvery reflections. It's a surreal feeling, and quite enjoyable when you don't have to worry about where the current's taking you. We just hovered there for about 5 minutes ... not really being in any hurry to end the dive. Finally we came up near the boat, and climbed aboard for the ride back to the lodge.
We left Quadra Island on the 2 PM ferry, and made it home by around 10 PM ... with good connections and a mere 15-minute border crossing. Altogether a wonderful trip, with a great group of divers. I'd recommend both Quadra Island and Abyssal Charters highly to anyone who's comfortable doing this kind of diving. There's probably more life-per-square-inch on these walls than anywhere I've yet dove ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
