Lately it had been very cold, and the first morning began with a lot of scraping. It was a very nice weekend though despite the cold.
Horseshoe Bay was quiet and the visibility looked promising.
I started to unload my stuff as people showed up.
For the first day there was Jim Dixon, Evan Soukas, Dave Williams, Vlad Chernavsky, and Francois Keen. There were about six other divers on the boat as well, so we had a good compliment. I was pleased to see that our boat captain was Kevin. He and Jan had been in Florida for a while, and it was good to see him back. I'm sure he wasn't as glad to see the cold temperatures though! Kevin had two people helping him out on the boat as well since we had a large group. It turned out to be a good thing, because we realized that all of us were doing tech dives except for Francois! Thankfully, Bob was there to fill in as Francois' team mate.
Despite all the gear needed for our planned tech dives, we loaded quickly and then we were off! The first dive site we decided on was Ferndale, a newly discovered site. I had been on the Ferndale discovery dive not long ago. The boat ride out was fantastic.
Evan Soukas and I teamed up for diving today. It was also Evan's first tech dive in cold water after finishing his training in the Red Sea. It was going to be fun!
During the exploration dive Ferndale was great. I could see that it dropped off dramatically and we aimed to see if there was anything worth seeing deeper. Our dive plans were around 42 meters and one hour total run times. Evan and I came across a very cool brown box crab, a few small glass sponges, a huge giant nudibranch and large schools of perch. Unfortunately Ferndale didn't have anything unique to see other than good visibility and rock topography. We decided later that it was not really worth the expense of trimix. We had more fun and saw more on the deco portion of the dive! It was still good though. In the video below there is a section showing how dark it was. I also got some good video of the giant nudibranch swimming.
During our surface interval, Kevin motored us over to Worlcombe Island. It had been a very long time since I had been there. It looked very nice.
Years ago, there used to be basket stars here. I hoped that maybe they might still be here, only deeper (I had never seen them since). Our dive plans were for 39 meters, and one hour run times. It was a bit more challenging getting in the water here with more waves and boat movement. Dave asked for his camera rig to be passed to him, but the current swept us apart. Once in the water though, it was good. Evan and I headed to our planned depth but only came across sloping sand. Heading north, we did find the wall, but it started at 21 meters which was at the start of our deco. Once again, we saw more on our deco stops than we did on the dive. No basket stars, alas. But, we did find a very big octopus in a crack, many Nanaimo Dorids, and a few nice boot sponges.
I put together a video compilation of the whole weekend and you could see the first day here. The second day started when you come across the section where I do a walk through of the boat.
We packed it in for that day and headed back to the dock. It was a great boat ride back. We decided to meet for some food and beverages after, and we found a nice warm place with a fireplace.
Dave and Evan discovered the poutine appetizer and Dave liked it so much he had two. We had a good old time reminiscing and talking about diving.
The next day dawned, and it was back to Horseshoe Bay to dive the Annapolis! Evan had a suit problem and had to cancel, so I dove with Vlad. I brought my scooter, and myself, Vlad, John Campbell and Dennis Diamond formed "Team Scooter" for that day.
Here was a group shot heading out that morning. I missed a lot of people though! Liz Tribe, Marc, Gord and Dave were all missing here unfortunately.
We had a great set of two dives. I'd not scootered on the Annapolis before and it was a blast. The big cut outs made for excellent swim throughs. On the second dive, Vlad and I did a short penetration then spent the rest of the time scootering around the wreck. Vlad had us try some formation scootering and it turned out pretty good. The order from left to right: me, Vlad, John, and Dennis.
Dave put together an excellent video compilation of the inside of the wreck here. His video light set up worked very well.
The Annapolis didn't have a lot of life on it yet. But it had attracted large numbers of schooling perch.
Finally, this is a good picture of a very happy Dave, and summed up pretty much how we all felt all weekend. It was a great time!
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