The end to three days straight of diving, dive number 88! I was closing in on 100. My plan was to have enough dives so that I'd hit 100 on my trip to Port Hardy on April 1st. I was thinking I might have to stop some of my diving, otherwise I'd have too many! I had at least 6 more planned, along with the open water dives for my GUE Fundamentals training course. I suppose I could not count the training dives in a pinch.
Anyway, I had tried to go on a night dive with Alan and Evan a few weeks ago. The plan was to go to Strathcona (White Rock) near Deep Cove to pick up some dungeness crabs. Unfortunately, that dive was cancelled when Alan smashed his head into the truck tail gate by accident. So, we planned it again, and it worked out. Evan couldn't make it, though.
It was an awesome night for a dive. Completely clear sky, and a spectacular view of Orion's Belt. It was cold though. I had to wear my toque and gloves while we were getting ready. Strathcona, also known as White Rock, was not to be confused with White Rock the community south of Vancouver. Strathcona was the road name, and White Rock was the small island just off shore. At least I think it was! There were about 3 or 4 parking spaces available. No bathrooms that I could see though, and a lot of residential houses around. Gearing up on the asphalt was nice and clean, but there were no tables to help you get into your gear. Alan had double 130s, and I was using my single 130. Pretty soon I'd be in double 130s as well, but not yet.
The tide was out, so the water level was very low. We joked that we were just going to wade out to catch the crabs. There were a lot of private docks nearby, so you really needed to pay attention where you might come up. You did not want to come up under someone's boat or dock. Still, it was pretty easy to steer clear of them if you used your compass, and paid attention to the underwater signs. It would get brown and gross when you were under a dock apparently. The island was south east of the entry point, and if you swam to it and headed around it to the left, you'd come across a nice wall. You would not want to go around to the right of the island, because that was extremely shallow and dull. Also, watching for boats was a good thing, although at night boat traffic was non-existent.
For our dive, we stayed between shore and the island. At low tide, the bottom was only 4 meters deep. But the number of crabs was astounding! I'd never seen so many, and big ones, too. It only took 8 minutes to fill Alan's crab bag. By the time he got one in the bag, there was another big one right there. There was quite the halocline going, too, which made the whole experience wavy and surreal. There must have been freshwater runoff nearby. At one point, Alan opened the crab bag, and one of the ones inside made a break for it and literally jumped right out! I had to grab the first one while Alan wrangled the escapee back in, then got the next one in too. I almost laughed underwater several times. Once the bag was full, we messed around chasing a few of the other crabs around. We also spotted some kind of centipede-looking thing on a blade of eelgrass. I guessed it might be some kind of isopod, but I'd need to check it out later. With crabbing done so fast, we decided to practice some skills. We went through a full gas-sharing drill, Alan did a valve drill, I tried to reach my own cylinder valve (with limited success, but got close), and I tried some more backfinning. The backfinning didn't go very well, but I was still confident that with the upcoming training that I'd learn it. Alan thought the same. It just came down to practice, and not doing it at night, in the dark!
So, we packed up the seafood haul, and called it a successful evening. No one had an accident, either!
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