You are currently browsing the archives for February, 2009.
Red Hat Divers also offers a commerical services where they will video/photo survey your boat, dock, beach front, morring area. As well, if you want a video history of yourdive vacation or dive course, Red Hat Divers will record footage and make it in a DVD for you to enjoy for years to come. Be sure to stop by and visit their site, they have some great video footage available for download free of charge.
We originally had a charter booked headed out to the HMCS CHAUDIERE, and as always I was looking forward to diving it, plus I would have the chance to get more footage of the wreck, something I certainly would not turn down….but who to dive with. The charter was going to be a Tec Dive, with two on doubles and one on a rebreather….and I certainly was not in the frame of mind to do a long cold hang at 20 feet. Out of the blue, Tony called the shop and said he was hoping to get out for a dive or two for the weekend, talk about timing!!
Once everything was loaded on the boat, it was off to the boat launch and the trip up the inlet. With the sun being out, it made you think of the soon to be summer, though the air was still pretty crisp as we skimmed along the wave tops. Once on the dive site, we tied to the stern line on the wreck, and began getting the Tec guys read…first in was Owen on the rebreather, then Keith and Jessica. As they disappeared into what appeared pea soup, Tony and I prepared for our entry. Determined not to hang at the 20 foot mark on a long deco, away we went. Happily I slide into the follow position on Tony, and the tour began!
We swam the distance of the wreck and slide up through the hole at the 130ft mark, just back from the bow which leads into the forward crews heads and wash place, from there we went up through the door on Berma Road that takes you into One and Two Mess. Normally once in the Mess we would ascend through the exit point which is overhead, but on this dive Tony decided to head straight into an opening that leads into the forepeak which eventually lead to the outside of the wreck. This turned out to be an excellent penetration, and I was able to get some good footage, though I am pretty sure this is where my troubles began. Since we were in the higher profile 120 cuft steel tanks I got my valve caught on the hatch combing, and had to wiggle through the opening. Unbeknown to me, this must be the point where my 8 pound weight pouch got caught and dropped. As when I got through the opening I was very light all of a sudden and had to dump some air from the BCD. Though not a big problem at this point…that would not be the case when I had to maintain my depth on what was going to be a 16 minute decompression stop.
Once we came out of this penetration we headed up and over the bow of the CHAUDIERE, where we got our first glimpse of Owen on his Megladon Rebreather, it always amazes me how quiet they are. We headed off to the penetration at the bridge where we would go in the lower hole on the bridge roof, and ascend up through the brdige to the Ops Room ladder which leads into ops, and through the Sonar control room, our exitpoint is overhead that leads out through an opening on the stardboard side of the boat. As we proceeded aft and to our ascent line we did two more penetrations, one which was new for me, and then the final one on the stern, and out to the ascent line.
As we started up to our first decompression stop it was obvious this was not going to be a routine hold for me, as the I was about 8 pounds two light, and I had to wrap myself around the ascent line in order to maintain the 20 then 10 foot stops. Thankfully it was only 16 minutes of a hold.
As always another great dive, I certainly have missed diving with Tony, something I hope we will get the chance to do again in the near future. If you are interested in doing the Wreck Specialty or Advanced Nitrox/Decompressions Procedures go to the Courses page on this site, and see what it is all about!
The Fish page of the Marine Life of Pacific Northwest has had an update completed. We have added the Pipe Fish, Great Sulpin and Quillback Rockfish. All images were taken by UWE in the Sechelt BC area.
Want to see somthing specific, be sure to send us some feedback and let us know.
[SinglePic not found]Uwe and SCDC went out on the first explorer dive of 2009, and boy what a great time we had! We drove the boat to the launch at Egmont, so we could cut down on the cold transit time from Sechelt. It was beautiful being able to be on the dive site in 10 minutes verse 60 minutes. We loaded up at the Back Eddy Pub and got headed up the Agamemnon to the second or third by on the left, and readied ourselves for the dive.
Once we were all suited up it was off the boat into the water, where we discovered that there was a slight surface current. That took us off the wreck site a little, as we discovered on our descent. We dropped and ended up in 100 ft of water. As the bottom came into site we were treated with a Cabezon siting, which is not an often seen fish in the Sechelt Inlet. Once settled in we started our search for the wreck, knowing we were a little deep for it we slowly swam to the left knowing the dive would shallow,[SinglePic not found] and sure enough out of the haze we say a sizeable bow lumming out at us. The boat was made of wood, and the conditions had been hard on it. There are many items one needs to be sure about so as not to get under thing in the event they were to fall on you…all and all though it was a great dive!! The other thing that was great was that there were four or so large lings hanging around because of the various egg masses that were there.
Want to dive this wreck….be sure to give Suncoast Diving a call, or stop by the SC Dive Club site and find out more information for our next dives there.
Uwe and Suncoast Diving went out today on the Inlet to complete the PADI Drift Specialty Course. Kim, came up to Sechelt from Vancouver so she could take this course, and boy what an amazing day we had. On dive one, we stopped by at the Power Lines, this is an amazing wall dive, with a slight drift to it. The depth on the wall is around 900ft though as you can image we remained in the top 100ft of the wall.
The wall was really beautiful as it was all covered with Feather Stars, chimney sponges, Ling cod…and sure enough, there we were on our safety stop, and there sat a Giant Pacific Octopus. It was a young one, maybe two hands large, and it just sat on this rock on the wall, checking us out. So, you know me…had had to get him on video, I have a couple of minutes of decent video of him.
Dive two had us out to the Tzoonie Narrows, and were we ever surprised when we saw slush/ice flows going through the narrows. Can anyone say fresh mountain run off!! Cold, yes it was, and before we got our nerve up to jump, Bruno had brought all the fixings for an amazing fire se we could warm ourselves, and get some things dried so we could get in and enjoy dive two.
Once everyone had warmed up it was off to the narrows for what would be another fantastic dive. The surface temp was in the 37 – 38 f range, and below the layer was still a bone chilling 43 – 44. The visibility was good, and we were treated to some giant barnacles, anemones, and our ever popular Moon jellies.
Overall another fantastic dive…..!
