British Columbia Wreck Diving.....

Hello all,

A group of UTD divers wanted a weekend away to do some pristine dives, so we chose to head over to Vancouver Island last weekend to enjoy what was an almost perfect weekend of diving.

As wreck diving enthusiasts we chose to head up to Comox, BC on the Saturday to dive the Septre Squamish and the MV Gulfstream with Pacific Pro Dive.
On the Sunday we spent the day in Nanaimo with Diver's Choice diving the HMS Cape Breton and the HMCS Saskatchewan.
The weather prediction leading up to the weekend was lots of rain with very little wind. But especially up in the Comox area, we never knew what we were going to get.

We headed over to the island from Vancouver on the Friday night before hand. We met at Ocean Quest as they had all of our gas blended ready for us to be analyzed. It was great orgainzation from all involved to get things perfect for our trip. We had two vehicles filled with tons of gear for 8 people including 5-6 tanks each including backgas/deco and stages along with camera gear, dive bags, etc...it was alot of gear :)

Once over on the island on Friday night heading up to Comox we went through a torrential downpour of rain. It was BRUTAL! Tons of wind as well :( It was BAD.
Based on the weather driving up the night before, you should have seen 8 diver's faces knowing that we had upwards of 20 tanks filled with 18/45 ;) YOUCH!
Our thoughts driving up is that we were not going to able to get out.....the rain was really bad combined with a gale wind break :(
We went to bed that evening thinking the worse.

On Saturday morning however....we were awake at 5:30am expecting the worse....but with not a whisper of wind and not a cloud in the sky, we were WOW! This is unbelievable! There were so many happy faces as we woke up and welcomed the day. The weatherman called for the worst, but we got the best. But we kept telling ourselves that is was going to change....

We went for breakfast and then headed to the charter boat to load our gear. We met Bill Coltart of Pacific Pro Dive and Bill has a fantastic dive boat to accommodate us technical divers. He runs a very smooth operation and we always enjoy going out with Bill to go to all the wrecks around these areas. By 8:30am we were ready to head out from the dock....and there were clear skies! We drove out of the marina and to our surprise, there were flat calm seas! Sunny, warm, and dead calm......what more could you ask for at this time of year for these wrecks. There were smiles all around.

Our first planned dive was the Septre Squamish and she sits in 170'-200' of water in open ocean with one down line. The Septre Squamish is not dove very often as not many people dive this wreck. This is a good thing as the amount of life on this wreck is truly remarkable. You name it, this wreck has it.
Giant schools of large rockfish of all kinds and colours, massive lingcod, massive cabizons, wolf eels, ratfish, huge red snappers, puget sound king crabs, etc.....this wreck has it all.
Everything on this wreck is on steriods :) Tons and tons of life.

Getting dressed into our drysuits, we had three teams heading down to the wreck. The first was Kathryn and myself, the second team being BlaineF and DarrenW, and the third team consisting of MarkD, DirkD, and BrandonH.
The dive itself was just truly amazing. I have dove on this wreck many times and this day for whatever reason I had never seen the viz so good. It was a least 80'-100' and crystal clear down on the wreck. We had ambient light on our first deep stop at 150' coming back up the upline! For everyone, the dive was executed very well and once everyone was back on the boat, we were all smiles :) Wow.

We went into Lund for some lunch where we had some world famous Cinnamon buns for a snack. The outside surface interval temperature was now as it was mid-day and the sunshine was warm :)

We then headed out for our second dive on the MV Gulfstream. This is a very popular dive among divers. It is a beautiful wreck dive. The MV Gulfstream is an old passenger ferry that went from Powell River to Lund and run up onto Dinner Rock quite some time ago. She sits in 120'-170' of water just off Dinner Rock. On this particular dive once again we had pristine visibility which made this natural wreck dive pretty amazing. This dive is really spectacular as once you have done the bottom portion of your dive, the wreck sits right next to a wall which makes for a an exciting ascent portion of your dive :) Your deep stops and your deco is so relaxing taking in the views of the red Gargonian coral on the wall combined with tons of different fish life with the wolf ell, and into the shallows with Octopus and kelp beds with colours and colours of life. Ah...what a dive.
After both of our dives, we came up once again to flat calm seas and the sunshine was shining bright :)

Once we finished our day of diving, we headed back to the dive center to get some fills of 25/25 for the next day's diving down in Nanaimo to dive the two other wrecks we had planned. So...once we filled up with more gas, we were on our way....

We then arrived in Nanaimo that evening and the charter operator allowed us to put all of our gear onto the boat the night before so it made it very convenient for us which was very helpful. Ken & Carolyn of Diver's Choice charters are very accommodating and run a great operation. Once we had our gear on board, Ken filled all the rest of our tanks for us so in the morning we could just walk on board, analyze, and go diving......he made it so easy for us.
So, we dropped off all of our gear and empty tanks, and we left Ken to do the rest.

We checked in to Ken & Carloyn's 'Hotel' and by 8pm that evening we were eating some great Indian cuisine at a little restaurant right in Nanaimo Harbour. Wow what a feast! A great day indeed.
Once back at the hotel, we really appreciated the 'dry room' as there was a nice hot fire place running and it was great to be able to lay out all of our drysuit stuff and have it nice and dry for the morning.

We then shared some laughs playing some games and then called it an evening in anticipation for two more great wreck dives in the morning.....

In the morning, we awoke once again to not one cloud in the sky and not a ripple on the water in front of us. The hotel is right on the water and we can practically look out and see the wreck sites from our room. Truly amazing it was....

We went for breakfast and then we were on the boat getting ready for our dives. The conditions looked fantastic so everyone was looking forward to the dives. Everyone today were conducting dives in the 90'-130' range with bottom times in upwards of 45-55 minutes not including deco time on Oxygen in the shallows. The scooters were out and buzzing :) the cameras were out and rolling :) the line laying was running :) and diver's smiling were abundant :)

The first dive was the Cape Breton and the viz once again was the best I had ever seen on this wreck. I have dove this wreck many times and had never seen it like this. Ambient light the entire dive (even on the inside) and it was an easy, easy 100'+ of viz. It was crystal clear.
We just didn't want to come up after 50-55 minutes :)

The second dive was the HMCS Saskatchewan. This is a favorite among divers as the amount of life this wreck makes any diving enthusiast happy. If you are into wreck penetration, it is awesome. If you are into the fish life, this wreck is awesome. If you are into photography, this wreck is truly awesome. This wreck does truly have it all. Giant octopus, puget sound king crab, etc...every diver will love this wreck.

After two long dives on a great dive boat, our diving weekend had come to an end. We packed up our gear, and we made the ferry (barely) back to the mainland in nice time.

Some dive trips are memorable in different ways :) Some good, and some bad ;)
This one imp articular was very memorable in a good way for many reasons. Everything just worked in our favour the whole entire weekend.

Of course, the best part of any dive trip is the company itself. All of us had a great weekend together. There were tons of laughs and everyone worked as a team to make sure the weekend ran smooth as most of the time it was go-go-go. But, everyone worked hard.

As far as the diving was concerned it ran like a well oiled machine. Everyone was on the same page and this put the fun in the FUN :) A really good group of people combined with memorable dives.
A diving weekend not to be forgotten :)

A thank you to all. Next trip April 2010 ;)

Some pictures have been posted and short video clips to follow.
Check out the video of the MV Gulfstream here for now:
http://www.vimeo.com/7557007
Enjoy!

Thanks all,

Todd