The Cut 07/08/2013

Dave Williams, Jim myself and a GUE diver I had not personally met before, Valdimir, decided to do a technical dive at the Cut at Whytecliff.

It was great to finally meet Vlad, who had moved to Vancouver a few months ago. The parking was scarce at Whytecliff, summer had made it very busy. We didn't get great spots, but it wasn't bad. The evening was perfect. It was warm, but not scorching. I wore a thinner undergarment thinking that the water temperature would be quite warm with the constant sun we had been getting. I was wrong!

The dive went great. We planned for a 40 minute dive with an average depth of 39 meters. The visibility was not bad. It certainly wasn't horrible! Dave and myself dove together, but we did stay together as a "team" of 4. Vlad and Jim formed the second team. On the wall, I found a very nice golf ball crab who promptly got skittish and dropped off the ledge he was on into the abyss. Oops! I also found two very nice decorated warbonnets in crevices. We didn't come across any octopus, but we did find a giant giant ling cod. The glass sponges also looked bigger than normal.

It was a pretty cold dive, I must say. Deco at 6 meters was warmer, but not as warm as I was expecting. There was also quite a bit of current. We came back into Whytecliff bay to do our deco, so eventually we got out of the current. Dave had a problem with his deco reg and was low on deco gas. He ended up running out near the end of the deco, so it gave some good practice sharing deco gas with no real risk

All in all, a very fun dive!