Kelvin Grove and Porteau Cove 19/09/2010

This weekend, I went back to Kelvin Grove with Vince. Kelvin Grove had been closed due to septic system work, but that was all done now. The system had been upgraded so the water was treated now, and not raw like it was before. The outflow pipe was very far off shore and deep so it wasn't close to the dive area at all. A good reminder there could be bad stuff in the ocean!

We did a 20 min dive at each level of 90, 70, 50 feet making up an hour total. There were a lot of painted greenlings, and white nudibranchs. Nothing fancy but Kelvin was always a nice dive with its easy entry and good rock topography. Visibility was also good, maybe 30 feet and quite bright. It was a sunny day. Gearing up was easy on the concrete slab.

We left Kelvin for Porteau Cove. Jason was doing a fun dive for IDC there. We didn't synch up with them, as they were out on their last dive already.

Porteau didn't yield anything beyond the usual ling cods and schools of perch and fields of anemones. In the jungle gym there was a nudibranch garden that was nice. There were a bunch of opalescent nudibranchs clinging to the stalks of some bottom plants. Also near the sailboat hull there were a ton of red decorator crabs. We hunted for octopus, but none were in their homes. Too bad. Visibility wasn't as good as at Kelvins, but that was to be expected for the shallower Porteau.

It was a long day. Traffic on the way home was bad. But, it was a good dive day all around. Again, I brought my stage along for practice. It went ok, but my trim was off. I did a weight check, and discovered that my 11 pound v-weight was far too much. I decided to ditch that weight and use less.