Greg Nuttal had talked about this dive a few times to me. I was quite excited to finally get to do it! He posted the event on the GUE BC Groupspaces site here. I would highly recommend doing this dive to anyone who has a scooter and the skills/experience to do it. It was a neat dive using the advantage given by scooters to better effect. Most of the dives I'd done with scooters had not really required them. This dive wasn't feasible without one (or a boat), so it was good to see a return on the investment we had put into them! Greg made a funny comment that this dive was "free" because there was no boat charter cost. That only made sense if you disregarded several thousand dollars of scooter equipment!
Vlad got some pretty good video of the dive. I could see why it was a popular dive site, the sponges were beautiful.
I found the Senanus Island dive on the UVic Scuba Site. Normally this dive was done on a boat, or alternately a dive kayak. Personally I'd never heard of anyone I know using a dive kayak, so usually it was a boat. Some further research showed that Senanus Island was traditionally used by the Tartlip native band as a burial ground, and that access to the island was restricted. Thankfully we were visiting only the underwater portion.
The dive plan was a bit more complicated due to the scooter component. The entry was Henderson Point, a popular diving spot at the end of Senanus Drive (a map reference of the actual dive site). Looking at the Henderson Point link, you can see both the entry point and Senanus Island (make sure to enable satellite view to see the island). The distance between the two is about 850 meters, or just under a kilometer. Mark Gottfried was along for the dive, and had done it many times. He told us a story of when he tried to do the dive years ago by swimming before scooters were readily available. He said it was amazing how close things looked, but in reality were very far away! Needless to say, the moral of the story was don't try to swim to the island.
The plan was to set a bearing for the lighthouse/cement factory and travel via scooter at ~9 meters for ~18 minutes, surface, take another bearing for the return trip, and descend to the Seananus Wall sponges. The bottom time was planned at about 30 minutes, and our average depth was expected to be 39 meters. The decompression would be done "on the trigger" while scootering back to Henderson pt. The compass bearing for the first leg was 230 degrees, and the return bearing was about 20 degrees. Because scootering on the surface would be unsafe, this dive also tested your underwater navigation skills. The trip across was in mid-water, so there were no landmarks and you had to trust in your compass completely.
Vladimir and I formed one team, and Greg and Mark the other. Originally Shawn Buttle was supposed to come, but he had to cancel. He did come out to say hi, because he had cylinders for Mark. Great support team, Shawn!
Vlad and I did pretty well on the first leg of the dive, although we were off to the left quite a bit when we surfaced near Senanus. Vlad had a compass mount for his scooter, and I realized after holding my arm in front of me for 20 minutes that it would be a sound investment to finally get a compass mount as well. We regrouped near the lighthouse on Senanus, verified our return bearing and started the dive. There was a wreck of a small boat near where we descended that Greg had found previously. It gave a good reference on where to start the trip back.
The dive on the wall was excellent. We did the dive without scooters for two reasons. One was to be sure to maintain adequate battery reserve for the trip back in case of a scooter failure, and the other was that it was better to go slow to view the sponges properly. The visibility was quite good and the sponge formations were nice and intricate. I remember seeing a particularly nice tiger rock fish as well, hiding out near one of the rock formations.
On the trip back, Vlad and I ended up being off to the right by quite a bit this time. It really showed that on long trips underwater, if you were off by a little it equaled quite a ways at the end of the trip. Fortunately it didn't take too long to regroup back and Henderson.
Mark had to leave after the first dive, but Greg, Vlad and myself went out for a second recreational dive. Greg and Vlad did some bottle rotation practice, and I did some gas switching practice. Greg also took us on a little tour of Henderson looking for octopus, but we didn't find any. We checked out the wreck of the small boat, and the fake skeleton that was still affixed there was in poor shape. All that was left was his leg. There were many White Lined Dirona nudibranchs around, and they were very pretty. Greg showed off his knowledge of the dive site, hitting all the landmarks bang on. Understandable considering he has probably dove Henderson a hundred times, I'm sure!
All in all, I was not disappointed by this dive trip. Thanks for setting it up Greg! It was definitely worth getting up at 4am for! I can't wait to come over and do it again!
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