The data gathering aspect of Project Baseline was designed to be as easy as possible. At a station, only depth, temperature, and visibility had to be recorded. A diver just needed to illuminate the visibility plaque, back away, and at the point where the two outside bars blurred together, record the distance. This was a picture of what the visibility plaque looked like. You could see that the outer two bars were still visible.
You did need some way to record the distance, but you didn't need to bring a tape measure. A piece of line with a knot tied in it at that point, then measured later would do. Or a line with regular intervals marked on it could be used.
Part of our goal on this dive was to make finding the stations easier. There were only two stations, but there was no guarantee that everyone could find both. The first station at the stern of the Ready was relatively easy to find. Josh's plan was to run a line from the bow of the Ready, along the bottom to the second station at the Cape Swain.
We met up at the parking lot at the Galileo Coffee company. John took a group picture. From left to right: Dave, Dennis, Nick, Anton, Alex, Evan, John and Josh.
It was low tide when we did the dive, and the plan was to swim to the first dock piling and drop on the Ready. John got a picture of the beach. It really was low tide!
There were a few problems at the start of the dive, with a leaky o-ring on an LPI, and a flooded scooter. Unfortunately this meant that the scooter team had to leave them behind, but the o-ring was fixed easily. Crossing the road was a bit of a challenge too, as there was a huge amount of traffic going up to Whistler for the long weekend. Frogger, anyone?
Alex and I dropped on the Ready, and in less than 3 meters there it was. Visibility was better than it had been on the last dive we did at Britannia. When descending on the Ready you needed to be quite careful, as the wreck is a real wreck. If the visibility was bad, there was a good chance of you landing on broken bits of the wreck. There were quite a few sharp edges and bits.
Alex and I found the first station at the stern of the Ready and took the first readings. The visibility was pretty good, I measured it to be 4.9 meters. We found the wheel of the "mystery wreck" located beside the Ready.
We came across a lot of perch, ling cod and dungeness crabs. There were no nudibranchs though, which was odd.
We found the line that the other teams laid, and followed that to the second station. The start of the line was tied as planned to the bow of the Ready.
Since the bottom didn't offer much to tie off to, tent pegs were used. We joked about the pegs, as we didn't know if they would float away. Josh discovered that the pegs he bought at Canadian Tire were neutral though. Good to know for the future! Dave laid the line, and did a good job.
The second station was shallower, and the visibility was definitely worse there. I took a picture of Alex beside it.
I took the measurement as 2.1 meters. We met up with Nick and Evan on the way. At the base of the station were two interesting sculpins.
We followed the line back to the Ready, and discovered half of an empty white egg shell. It was about fist-sized, so it wasn't a small bird. It probably was a Canada goose egg shell. At the Ready, we did some skills. Dave did some bottle switches, and Alex and I did some valve drills and S-drills. I got an interesting picture of one of the port-holes, totally encrusted.
I got another neat picture of a shrimp hanging out on the side of the wreck.
Finally we just followed the bottom contour up and finished the dive. Here is the video I got from the dive.
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