While on the boat heading out to the dive site I thought of a great name for today's blog "It's a good day to dive". Brilliant, until I remembered Ryan used the name for his video of the local dive sites. Shameless as I am I used the name anyway. I will point out that I added an additional word to avoid any infringement on his copyright.
It was another 7:30 am dive call and for the life of me I don't know why anyone wants to get up so early on a Saturday morning other than a bunch of zealous divers, strap on a 100 pounds of gear, jump in 43 degree water and breath compressed air at a 100 foot depth until the tank is almost empty. I personally don't call that sane, but I do call it fun.
As we sat in the warm cabin (Mike, Jon, Ryan, Rick, Steve W., Hal and I) of the Salish Explorer we once again rounded the buoy as we passed Fort Ward and watched the seals lounging on the platform. A large male extended its neck as if waiting for us to throw him handouts. The boat chugged on through the falling snow. We reached the site and our Captain (the other Mike) put us on top of the reef. My hand was still sore from a few weeks ago so Rick, my valet, placed my rig on the back deck and plugged in my air hose. It was into the water with Ryan and down the wall we went to 105 feet. Rick made it past us to 130 feet, the recreational diving limit. I followed Ryan with his bright lights for videography at one point coming back over the wall like something from a cheap horror movie. As I gazed at a california sea cucumber on our way back I was surprised to find it could swim, at least with the help of Ryan's fin. I was disappointed when I emerged at the surface with over a 1000 psi of air left in my tank.
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| Swimming Anemone in Current |
At ShangriLa Mike invoked the three strikes rule of diving and wouldn't go in since his regulator decided to free
flow while on deck, leaving him with only 900 psi of air in his tank. I never did find out what the other 2 strikes were. Ryan and I were once again paired and we did a fantastic job of missing the wolf eels and octopi that the site is famous for. We passed a lone swimming anemone with its tentacles gracefully bending back with the flowing current. I stayed with Ryan as he shot video of a lingcod on eggs and I examined the intricacies of the encrusting sponges and short plumose anemones nearby. We swam back up to the top of the reef with Ryan stopping to check his air. I checked my air. Ryan showed me his gauges and pointed to his tank pressure, 500 psi, I had 1200 psi. I won! No, I lost since Ryan wanted to surface. His Big Kahuna tank, which holds 120 cubic feet of air, was sad and lonely back at his house.
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| Plumose Anemone oral disk |
At the safety stop Ryan thought I was narced at 18 feet. I swam circles around him periodically moving up higher then diving down lower while I waited out my 3 minutes. You shouldn't do this since the activity can release trapped nitrogen but I couldn't keep my buoyancy correct like I did on the first dive. On that dive I added 2 pounds while I was testing the water tightness of a used camera housing I purchased. I incorrectly thought the additional 2 pounds would be too much and removed them for the second dive. This, combined with finally figuring out my neck seal, yes I stayed dry, made me too light at the safety stop so I was forced to circle Ryan like a wacked out shark while maintaining my depth.
It was a great day to dive and no better way to celebrate St. Patrick's day than swimming in the emerald waters of the Salish Sea.
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