Saturday was a beautiful day and with the meet time scheduled for 10:00 am it was late enough to get a good sleep and enjoy a leisurely drive and still have tons of time to assemble my gear before anyone else arrived for the day. Up at the dive site at just after 9:00 allowed me ample time to pull out my kit and take my time to assemble everything then walk out an look at the conditions, and then head over to the Langley Dive van to see what the plan was. After a couple of minutes, one of the Bunnies, Monique Score, having finished her dive, came over to say hello and welcome me to the dive. A few minutes later I met Rebecca Barrett, another Instructor from Langley Dive and the second Dive Bunny. Soon a group had formed, and Monique and Rebecca called everyone together to welcome us and let us know the details of today's adventure.
Earlier in the day Monique and Rebecca had placed twenty-seven (27) eggs beneath the surface of the water, no deeper than 50 feet, on the surfaces of the Granthall, Centennial, Sailboat Hull, Jungle Gym, Tire Reef and along the Fire Hose. The idea was simple, go, collect, return, YEAH!...lol.
Monique had already introduced me to my dive buddy for the day, a recent graduate of the Open Water program at Langley Dive in January and excited about his 5th dive and first time in Porteau Cove. I was also able to meet another diver, excited to get back in the water for his 6the dive following his completion of his Open Water back in September. Both divers (and even Monique) seemed a bit surprised to hear I have not been certified all that long myself (end of August) and was headed out for dives 36 and 37...lol. I was also delighted to speak with one of the new divers as he is also a Detroit Red Wings fan, and amidst a sea of Canucks fans these days as the team throws away game after game it was interesting to see the Red Wings hat from across the parking lot... too bad I forgot mine. After some hockey talk and more importantly red Wings nostalgic talk, he headed to meet up with his buddy and me with mine as we all donned gear, finished our buddy checks, being very thorough as this was the most junior group of divers I had been out with to date, odd being the experienced diver for once...lol. With everything secure where it needed to be and dive plan discussed it was time to get in the water.
Our plan for dive one, to keep it simple, was to swim out to the first marker buoy descend and follow the fire hose out and over to the sailboat and reef and eventually the Granthall and all going well and air holding out, slowly make our way back in and reduce our surface swim as much as possible. For those divers who have only ever done Porteau Cove, their first dive at Whytecliff is a shock because there is a long walk to the beach with all your gear on, for those who have only ever done Whytecliff Park and come to Porteau, you are blessed by the amazingly short walk (unless the tide is way out) but the ground slopes so slowly you need to surface swim a good distance before you can get anywhere that has some depth... all about what you want...lol. So my new buddy and I got in the water, fins on, masks on and started our surface swim... fortunately doing the first buoy it is not really a long swim and we managed to talk a bit on the way out comparing Whytecliff to some of the things he would see here at Porteau. Once close to the buoy, we caught our breath, put in our regulators and signaled for descent and BAM! it hit me... I was in charge of this dive... I was the senior diver... if we got lost... or had issues... or got eaten by a ravenous squid-a-pus (you can meet Kraken in Diving, Dinner, Demo's and the RCMP...) it would all be my fault...lol. My nerves were not really put at ease when we descended either, as we broke the surface I quickly realized that seeing my buddy 5 feet away was a bit of a struggle, never mind seeing something further away than that....like the chain we were supposed to be following down...lol. So on the ground we headed in what I "thought:" was the right direction... and with a couple glances at my compass.. someone had moved the hose!...lol That had to be it.. there was no way I was lost... could I be?... yup... I was lost....and realizing nothing was where I left it...lol.. I signalled to my buddy and we ascended back up to re-orient to our target.
We actually didn't end up too far off target, we were further North-East then I had planned so a little plan change and a solid compass bearing marked us dead online to the second buoy. Descending again and watching my compass we made a straight line to the 2nd marker, found the fire hose with no issue and continued on through the jungle gym and to the surface of the Centennial where I found a rock painted like an Easter egg. With the egg in my pocket, and my buddy beside it was off to the Granthall where I managed to find 2 plastic Easter eggs that had been placed beside the Plumose Anemone so they were each almost invisible as the colors were blending in. Our return trip over the Centennial led to my buddy finding a painted rock similar to mine before we turned towards shore and then towards the surface for a decent surface swim.
Back up at the vehicles with the tanks off our back it was time to grab our lunches and check in with Monique and Rebecca. A couple sandwiches later, a nice cup of hot chocolate and a couple cookies and I was all good to go again...lol. Gathered around the Langley Dive van Monique showed us where the numbers were on the bottom of our plastic eggs, turned out the painted rocks... not part of our search...lol, must have been another group out earlier in the week, perhaps Friday, that missed a couple...lol. So with two plastic eggs I gave one to my buddy (we were a team after-all) and listened as Rebecca called out numbers and passed us all prizes. Then when all the eggs (the ones that had been returned at least) were called, Monique and Rebecca gave out prizes to anyone who was unable to come across an egg in their first dive, so everyone got something anyways.
Dive 2 was my Navigation challenge, I knew (this time) that visibility was going to be tough. So with the plan being similar to dive 1 we decided we would get right up to the buoy and follow the chain to the ground, with a little searching (it's not attached right at the bottom) we found the hose. Then following it we made our slow swim towards the 2nd buoy over the Sailboat hull, passed the Centennial, over the tire reef, through the jungle gym, and around the Granthall (where we each found another egg.) The return trip, with my compass bearing in mind, came almost natural, after looping the Granthall, we headed back through the jungle gym, above the tires around the Centennial (man there are some HUGE ling cod sleeping on that deck) passed the sailboat hull and right back onto the fire hose... Then, following the hose, we made the trek back to the first buoy which was not hard to find this time. You see, this buoy is often used by Open Water classes, so really all you have to look for is large clouds of disturbed silt and you can see where the students are landing at the bottom...lol. A turn to the left through the cloud and sure enough there fighting for their buoyancy were a couple Open Water students..lol. Then keeping on that line it was a straight swim all the way back in. We were able to get so close in that my computer actually turned off, I guess I had been swimming in less than 5 feet of water too long...lol. We actually had to back out into the bay again to take our fins off but it was definitely the closest I have ever come to swimming to the stairs, and certainly without a doubt the best navigation I have ever done.
The route we followed is below:
Well, I always say, it's a great dive if you learned something new and I learned that I can navigate and with a little practice I might actually get good at it. Here's looking forward to Rescue this weekend, Photography the weekend after along with a fun dive and very soon.. the Aquarium!
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