After Port Hardy, planning a dive in the local area seemed a bit... tame! But it would turn out to be anything but!
Jason Kolba and I decided to dive Lookout Point again, since we liked it the last time. There seemed to be few people interested in diving there since the walk down to the water is long, and there is no parking nearby. The day started out later than normal, since Jason wasn't able to get gear until that morning, but we made it out by eleven or so. It was already high tide, and the water was almost lapping at the base of the stairs. It was also threatening rain, but we were lucky in not getting any while we were gearing up. A Google map link of Lookout Point is here, just make sure to click on “Satellite View”.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=49.376645,-123.289669&spn=0.003081,0.006748&z=17
Our plan was to do a deeper dive, between 25 and 30 metres since neither of us had gotten very much experience with that yet. Completing the advanced open water course meant that we were certified to go to 30 metres, but that was the upper limit. While we weren't specifically looking to get nitrogen narcosis, we still wanted to get an idea what it was like under controlled conditions. So that was the plan for the first dive.
We entered the water at the beach, and swam out to the left and descended there. The water was pretty rough, and the visibility was pretty bad. I lost sight of Jason on the descent and he was only 10 feet away or so. I found him pretty quick though, and we started out around the rocky point like we did last time. On the way we came across three nice size dungeness crabs. Too bad the area is a no-take zone, or we might have had crab for dinner!
When we hit the end of the point, I noticed that the sea grass was bent completely horizontal. That started some warning signals for me. The water was just ripping along to the south west along the outside rock wall of the point. I hesitated, wondering if we should go ahead or not and decided to keep going. It was quite a nice drift dive at the start, but it was clear that we were moving very fast. So, I moved us into a sheltered cut in the rock after not too long and we went down to almost 30 metres. We hung out looking at the sponges on the rocks, where there were some pretty nice boot sponges. It did get very dark at 30 metres. I'm glad I was using my new cannister light. It made a big difference.
When we started to head back, that's when we realized just how strong the current was. Jason had planned for us to practice slow, neutral ascents, but there was no way we could do that in that kind of current. Swimming hard basically kept you stationary, with no gains at all. We ended up hugging the rock and pretty much pulling ourselves along with our arms. I burned through my air quite quickly doing that with all the exertion, so we had to surface far shorter from the point than we had anticipated. Still being pulled by the current, we had not much choice but to get closer to the rocks and keep pulling ourselves along. At that point, wash from a passing ferry took us by surprise and really pounded Jason. I was able to ride the swells, but he was too close to the rocks, and ended up having to crouch on them while the waves poured over him. In all that, his light broke off from its handle, and he got a bit scraped up. It was dicey, since I wasn't sure how I'd get in to help him if he got into trouble. The ferry wash died down fairly quickly, and I was able to retrieve his light from the bottom. It was wedged into a crack. Then we bent ourselves to the arduous task of hauling ourselves around the point hand over hand, without getting dashed into the rocks. All in all, we were successful and finally made it into calmer waters. We both were not keen on doing a second dive there, but had learned a lot!
Fortunately, Whytecliff is just next door, so we walked over there and it was much better. After a bit of rest and some lunch, as well as some chatting with Emily (I'm diving the HMCS Saskatchewan with her next weekend), we went out again.
This wasn't a sight-seeing dive. We wanted to run through some safety and gas-sharing drills in preparation for the GUE Fundamentals course that we are both planning on taking in the Spring. Everything went pretty well. We did some spinning helicopter turns, too, as well as some neutral buoyance practice. It was also nice because I got a chance to practice managing the cord that is part of my new light. A lot more relaxing than the last dive, if less exciting!
At the end of the day, the sun had come out somewhat and it was quite nice. The temperature was still cool, and I was glad to get home in the end.
Next week: diving the HMCS Saskatchewan and Cape Breton!
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