Battle of the Breton, Take 4?
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Well the fourth time trying to dive a particular wreck is the charm? In this case it is!
The first two times back in the snowy spring expedition with Liz and Drew, we couldn’t get on the wreck due to lines, and the last time, I made it to 3m and thumbed my dive.
But this time would be different. Meeting up with Liz and Drew, and a few other new guests, we headed out towards the ship with anticipation. I was diving with Bryan, who I’m also taking GUE Fundies with later this week.
Going over our plan, and our equipment, we make a plan to check out the skylights, and current shouldn’t be too bad, as the tower would block most of it for us
As we got down to the bottom of the line, it was a different story. About a 1.5kt current in the other direction than we anticipated, which ment we weren’t going to get too far back towards the stern of the ship.
Kicking into the current and dropping down closer to the deck, we managed to look around the first skylight before we hit our turn pressures (joys of diving with small single tanks …) Our drift back to the line was very quick, and our Russian counterparts were just getting to the bottom of the line. We ascended up, happy with our 17minutes of bottom time.
For our second dive, we headed to Clark Rock.
There were some sailboarders zipping out from the beach and back where we were moored up. Christine (the boats DM) was going to join us for the dive, as there wasn’t much tending needing to be done on this dive.
Heading down the line, the first thing I noticed was a walker beside the boulder. But that was quickly pushed aside as Liz and Drew spotted a GPO (Giant Pacific Octopus) out for an afternoon stroll, and we followed him around for quite some time. There were lots of sponges about in this sandy/silty area, as well as quite a few fish.
We hit our turn pressures again, and headed back to the line. Liz, Drew and Dennis found a Wolf Eel just after we turned back to the boat.
The viz wasn’t the greatest, there was lots of stuff in the water, including hundreds of small jellies in the warmer surface layers of water.
Nanaimo BC, HMCS Cape Breton
Date: May 31, 2014
Bottom Time: 17 minutes
Max Depth: 26m
Water Temp: 12C
Running Time: 70:35
Nanaimo BC, Clark Rock
Date: May 31, 2014
Bottom Time: 26 minutes
Max Depth: 20m
Water Temp: 12C
Notes: Lots of Jellies int eh warmer top layers
Running Time: 71:07