Heather and I were in Alert Bay again to visit, and since the last dive was so good we decided to do it again. Both our dry suits were in for alterations, so we decided to use wet suits instead. I had never dove in a wet suit before in cold water, so it would be an interesting experience! Here is the photographic proof:
We had tried to dive at Porteau Cove the weekend before but the chocolate water turned us away. I think it was the first time we had ever called a dive for that reason! In contrast, the visibility in Alert Bay was again excellent (over 40 feet at least). We could see the bottom easily from the dock.
The day was a bit cloudy and rainy, but at least it was cool. How cool I would soon discover. The initial walk into the water was great until the water got into my wet suit boots. Brrr! Heather had wrangled the Cadillac of BARE Sports of wet suits for me, so it was pretty comfortable for the most part. The worst was when I moved my arms and new cold water would come in around my neck into the areas around my shoulders and back. I learned to be very economical in my movements.
The dive was as good, if not better than the previous one. No octopus, but many more Helmut crabs, and at least 5 crescent gunnels in the eel grass. Very cool! Here was me at the start of the dive.
And here was Heather.
You could see just how good the visibility was.
Heather found a light edged ribbon worm. Neither of us had seen one of these before.
Heather also found a pacific snake prickleback, about a foot long hiding in the kelp.
We followed the old break water to the end again. On the way, we found a lot of critters.
A very pretty anemone (I think a pale crimson anemone).
Some unidentified gelatinous thing on the bottom. I would have to investigate more.
An interesting sculpin.
An anemone that we had seen in the Vancouver Aquarium tanks, also living on eel grass.
Many helmut crabs.
A large sea lemon.
We came across an old Honda generator too. I didn't think it was fixable!
Near the point where it changed from North to North East we came across the wreck again. I realized this time that it was a different boat from the one I had seen sunk at the docks. There was no way that we had covered that distance away from the break water. This time I got a photo. Not a big thing, but still neat.
This picture was looking up through the dock pilings.
We also found more large shag mouse nudibranchs.
Heading back, we moved over the eel grass beds to the west and found another parallel breakwater, but the top was cut off below the waterline. Later Heather's relative's would confirm that it was indeed an older breakwater. Over the years many things had come and gone in the harbor. Apparently there were several old cars lost out there too! The pilings were coated with even more giant plumose anemones. They reminded me of the Capilano wreck, where they looked like fringes or halos.
In the eelgrass we were surprised to come across a large number of crescent gunnels. Neat!
Also, I'm pretty sure I found either a juvenile sailfin sculpin, or a silverspotted sculpin in the eelgrass too. There were an endless number of kelp crabs, snails and other critters in there tool Eelgrass certainly was productive.
The dive itself was almost 50 minutes so we did pretty good for wet suits. My computer said the water temperature was 10 degrees.
I could now say with confidence that I preferred dry suits over wet suits. You could do it, and I might do it again in a pinch, but for cold water, give me my dry suit!
Finally, here was the video compilation that I put together.
