Whytecliff The Cut 25/10/2009

I had originally planned to dive both Saturday and Sunday, but a communication mixup meant that when I was all ready to go on Saturday, my dive buddy wasn't! It was kind of disappointing because I had everything worked out. A dive outfit on the North Shore called The Edge runs fun dives every Sunday. You just show up, and car-pooling is worked out for those without vehicles. I was going to drop my cylinders off after the dive on Saturday, and then just take my gear across via the Seabus. Saturday was such a nice day too! Oh well. I was just happy to dive at all, really.

My dive buddy was Jason Kolba and we planned to do the Cut at Whytecliff Park. I had tried to convince him to do Ansell Place, but getting to the water there is a bit dicey. A lot of steep stairs, and a rough beach which you have to navigate in full gear. If you slip, it can really hurt! I still really want to dive Ansell Place though. I'll convince someone soon!

The weather was very overcast that morning and the forecast called for heavy rain. We were lucky though because the rain didn't start until we were all finished up that afternoon. You might think that rain shouldn't matter as we're already wet, but it sure makes gearing up and down a miserable experience! Also, since we had two dives planned, sitting around for an hour while eating lunch in the rain is never very appealing.

We met Novi, a diver who goes with the Edge often and whom I had met at Porteau Cove a few weeks ago. She was in the middle of her dive master training. There were a number of open water classes going on that day, and IDC was out as well. Jason said hi to Landon and Vince during the day, but I never had a chance to. Next time!

My original dive plan was to do a deep dive to 30m, but that got vetoed since Jason hadn't finished his Advanced course yet. Instead, we'd descend to around 20m and go right along the rock wall of the Cut. Since it was getting colder, I added a fleece vest over my undergarment which would prove to be a bit of a problem later. I had worn it before on a skills dive with Alan and it was fine. But we were pretty shallow then and didn't do a safety stop before surfacing. This time around, I got a good lesson in weighting, because at the end of the dive, I was just a bit too buoyant and couldn't hold our planned 3 minute safety stop. I figure I'll need at least two pounds more to offset the vest. Good to know!

The tide was coming in when we entered the water, but it wouldn't be high tide until about noon. The dive went ok, but I'd had better. I had a generally “off” feeling. I figure I was thinking too much about form, trim and propulsion, and not enough on just enjoying the dive. Leading the dive added to the stress, and so did obsessing over my depth and air consumption. Looking at my air consumption rates later confirmed that I was breathing a lot more than on dives past. However, we did stay at 20m pretty consistently which was deeper than many of my past dives so that was a factor too.

In the end, it was an ok dive. I certainly practiced a lot of propulsion and buoyancy skills so that was good. We also saw a seal rocket past us like a torpedo on the return to the Cut. At first I thought it was a ling cod, but then I realized it was the wrong shape. It was pretty far away, but you could see it pretty clearly. We also saw some pretty nice white nudibranchs and some nice chimney sponges. There were a few lazy ling cod resting on the rock shelves here and there, along with the regular spectacular compliment of white plumose anemones. Visibility was very good, out to about 40 feet or so. The water temperature was 10 degrees Celsius which hasn't changed in the last few months. I figure it might drop another degree. We'll see!

Like I already mentioned, I missed our safety stop but it was not a big deal. We had actually come up very slowly and spent a good few minutes at shallow depths, so I wasn't too concerned when I found that I couldn't stay down. It didn't take long to get back up to the park and change out tanks. We had a bit of lunch and talked with a few curious tourists who were braving the overcast day. A big dog came by to check out our gear, and I was a bit worried he'd carry off something! I didn't fancy getting teeth marks in my mask or fins.

Our second dive was going to be pretty simple too. Circle out to the left around the Day Marker and curve in to the bay, where we'd stop and practice the basic 5 GUE scuba skills. When we climbed down the stairs to the water, we noticed the tide had really come in. But it didn't make things too hard. After getting in and starting our descent, I had a funny feeling by my left foot. It was feeling wet! I must have nicked my boot on a sharp rock or barnacle, and I'd have to put up with a slow leak for the rest of the dive. It made things a lot colder having a wet foot, and I worried quite a lot about how serious the problem might be. Later, I'd find that it was a small cut and was easily fixable. On with the rest of the dive, though. We came across two of the memorial plaques to deceased divers on the way out. One really looked like a little box, and Jason didn't realize quite what it was until I explained later. There was no seal this time around. In fact, I can't recall much of the life I saw other than two other groups of divers that passed us. Like I said, these two dives were not the best for me.

However, when we got to the bay and started doing the skills, that turned out to be the most enjoyable time I had all day (even with the leaky boot!). The basic 5 skills we did were removing your regulator and replacing it, switching to your alternate regulator and back to your primary, deploying your primary regulator and hose as in an out of air emergency and switching to your alternate then replacing everything, flooding and clearing your mask, and removing and replacing your mask. All that was supposed to be done while hovering neutrally buoyant, but it was always harder than it sounds. We had a big tendency to “creep” upwards as we concentrated on doing the skills. But that was why we were practicing! We did pretty well on our no-reference safety stop just before this, but our neutral hovering left a lot to be desired. We also cheated and knelt on the bottom for the mask flood/removal skills. I got crap for that from Alan later! We really stirred up the bottom too. I knew that it was happening, though which is something at least. Got to work more on that buoyancy! Jason did comment that I looked very comfortable with mask clears and removals, which was good to hear. I just wish I was as comfortable with doing frog kicks and backwards kicks. But again, it will all come in time. This made my 35th dive, so that puts things in perspective. Guys like my mentor Alan had over 800! When I get to 800 dives, I'm sure I'll look back and wonder why I was so worried so early.

My next dive was already set: Port Hardy for 3 days worth of fantastic diving! Many people had been going on and on about how great it is there. I couldn't wait. My next entry will have to be extra long to document all that will go on there.