I’m a bit embarrassed as to how long I’ve let this go. I’m sorry! Since the last post, lots of things have been happening!

This summer we said goodbye to Ken and his wife Susanne. They’ve now relocated down in Mexico, though I have yet to hear how the diving is!

   There’s a new face around Suncoast Diving. SCDC would like to welcome Cheryl to the Sunshine Coast! If you haven’t yet, you’ll be seeing monthly newsletters coming from her at Suncoast Diving from now on.  If you’d like to get these newsletters, please sign up for our mailing list.

Another event  to report is the Project Aware Clean up on September 19th. It was hosted by both SCD and the Lighthouse Pub, and beautifully organized by a local dive instructor, Sarah Park. Photos and an article were published in ”The Local”, the local newspaper.  Over 1000 lbs of garbage were recovered from the ocean floor under the Lighthouse Pub boat slips and the government wharf.  SCD provided gear, the Lighthouse Pub provided lunch and drinks to participants, and the District of Sechelt provided garbage cans, manpower and a truck to haul the load up to the dump.  Some of the garbage included 2 car batteries, part of a float plane wing, a floatplane seat, and lots of bottles and cans.  We did manage to save (and hold!) several creatures hidden in the garbage, including several Octos!  Thanks again to Sarah Park and the day’s sponsers. Hopefully I can rangle up some photos of the event to post.

On to current events! There will be an afternoon Club Dive this Saturday, meeting at Suncoast Diving at 1:30PM.  Please come out and join us! Always looking to see new as well as familiar faces.  Also, there is a scheduled Underwater Pumpking carving contest on Oct 31st. I’ll be making another post with more details.

Thanks for everyone’s patience and keep an eye out here for updates!

UWE and Red Hat Divers have released the Diving in Sechelt DVD. This movie is featuring four of the many great dive sites found here on the Sunshine Coast. The video was filmed over the last 6 months, with editing and sound track being completed in the last couple of weeks.

We have the DVD for sale at Suncoast Diving, as well there are internet sales which can be found here at UWE, Red Hat Divers, as well as Sunshine Coast Dive Club. The cost of the video is $10.00, and $3.00 for shipping and handling. We hope you enjoy the movie.

The past two weekends have been busy for SC Dive Club!

Last Sunday, 15th of March, had the Club charter the Suncoast Diving Zodiac in an attempt to get out and explore Merry Island and Pirate Rock. Attempt is the word to note! After launching from Cooper’s Green, Bob, Lindsay, Kit, Bruno, Ken and I loaded into the boat and headed out of the bay. It was immediately obvious that we were in for a rough ride, but that soon turned into riding 8-10ft swells! After realizing that the waves were only getting bigger, we decided to call it off and return to safety to do a different dive. I’ll take this moment to applaud and thank Captain Ken for timing and executing a beautiful turn around between the huge swells! After agreeing that boat diving the back side of the island in Cooper’s wasn’t what we had planned, we decided to try the rocks to the left of the Halfmoon Bay wharf. The visibility was still short down at 80ft, and a light was a necessity. After surfacing we all agreed that coming out the next weekend was the best idea instead of going back in for dive 2, considering weather and visibility.  

This past Saturday, 21st of March, had club members Andrew, Vince and their friends John and Anita charter the zodiac to do some diving up in the Skookumchuck! Kim, the diver who braved the snowy weather to complete her drift course up in Tzoonie Narrows, ice flows and all (see the 1Feb post for video clips!) this winter returned for a day out on the Skookumchuck as well. With a specific bay in the Chuck that Andrew and Co. wanted to dive, we met up at the Backeddy Pub to load up, gear up, and go diving! The Skookumchuck is always a worthwhile drift dive, full of big and bright marine life!  For dive two, we couldn’t resist the call of the Agamemnon Channel, and headed out to do the powerlines, a steep wall that huge cloud sponges can be found starting at 80ft, and with the correct training a diver can spot Red Fan Coral at 150ft. Kim and I had a great safety stop on this dive, finding 5+ species of nudibranchs all within a small tight area, including a Leopard Dorid (a first for myself) and Andrew and Vince spotted a mated pair of Wolf Eels, claiming the male was huge! Everyone finished the day with big smiles! 

Sunday, 22nd of March, was the day to finish off what we had started a week before! Weather was MUCH more agreeable today, the water was flat calm, and the sun even made an extended appearance!  Due to the visibility being what it has lately, Bob, Bruno, Ken and I decided to try the inlet instead this time. We chose the IMAX pinnacle and Pipers Point as our sites. Since the pinnacle is prone to a decent surface current, Ken kept the boat live while the rest of us jumped into the water. Vis was again short, but you could get under the muck at around 50ft causing us to get seperated and find each other several times. The highlight of the dive for me was finding a juvenile Puget Sound King Crab, perched up on a rock asking for his photo to be taken![ After a relaxing surface interval, we geared up to drop in on Pipers, Bob keeping the boat live this dive so we could explore a longer stretch of the wall. The visibility cleared up nicely at 60ft, but it was dark! We were briefly inspected by a seal along the dive, only noticed by the glowing green eyes off in the dark distance. Two great dives, and we were back at the shop to clean gear before 2pm!

A great weekend out with SCDC! We'd like to see more of you out for club events! Please let us know if and when you'd like to come out and join us. As well, remember that we're starting to put together another order for Club shirts! Tshirts, hoodies, bags or even aprons! Whether you missed the first printing, or you want another shirt because they're your new favourite clothing item, let us know your size and colour, and we'll get it printed for you.

Last night saw Bruno, Sarah and I laugh in the face of winter’s last ditch efforts and headed out for a night dive. Since the sun doesn’t set these days until after 7, we met up at 5pm to get gear and head off. Cooper’s Green was the originally scheduled dive site, but a quick vote had us going to Tuwanek.

Our original dive plan was to try exploring the shore/inner side of the left island, but after rolling over and beginning our descent, we all quickly realized that probably wasn’t the best of ideas. The visibility it Tuwanek was… aweful is a strong word but…. let’s just say I was surprised we managed to stay together. Once we got to 30 ft, we broke through the soup and the vis was actually quite good, just very, very dark! We decided to stay deep to keep under the bloom, and turned right along the wall.

Along the way, I spotted a Salt and Pepper Sea Cucumber (a first for me), some nice hairy-spined crab (one even in the middle of his dinner), and a Northern Spearnose Poacher. The highlights of the dive were definitely the large lingcod sightings and TWO more octopus encounters!

 Bruno found the first one hiding under a rock. At first I thought it was a small Giant Pacific, but I’ve changed my vote to a Red Octopus.Its mantle was size of a hand (not my own hand as a reference though :P) and it was easily coaxed out of his den to play around a bit. It did a few colour changes for us, going from a red to deep purple, with a fantastic hint of almost an iridescent blue on it’s legs.  My find was another Red Octopus, though it was much smaller. It was hiding under a bit of gravel on the slope back to the beach.  It’s such a tiny little creature, but we seem to find him every night dive!

It was a great dive, though a particulary cold one (40 mins at 46 degrees) over all.  If you have yet to see an octopus in your diving adventures, this might be your chance! We have been having spectacular luck finding at least one on our club night dives, and though we can’t promise anything, the odds have bee good lately.  Let us know if you’d like to participate in any Sunshine Coast Dive Club activities!

The weather was almost spring-like for the first night dive of March 2009! Ken, Jeremy, Bruno and I headed to Tuwanek after meeting up at the shop.

We all headed into the water as the sun headed below the horizon then paired off into buddy teams. Jeremy, braving the still NOT spring-like waters in a wetsuit, and Bruno started in the direction of the left island wall, while Ken (armed with his video camera) and I slowly slid down the slope, following behind the other club members. If anyone’s been to Tuwanek in the last couple of weeks, you’ll know that the visibility isn’t terrific. The deeper we got, the algae started to clump together, improving the visibility but creating little masses that have shadows of their own in beam of a flashlight.

On our way back to shore, Bruno spotted “the smallest octopus he’s ever seen”, a little red octo, providing some film footage for Ken. Also, my reputation as a night dive Octo hunter is to remain, as I found another red octo during our safety stop. I called Ken over to get some more footage, but by the time I turned back, the little guy had disappeared…so I thought! While poking around finishing off my 3 mins, I found my octo hiding in a clam shell! Ken had already surfaced, so I brought up my shell with it’s surprise in it for him to get some last minute shots before we exited the water.

Another great dive with Sunshine Coast Dive Club! There’s lots planned for this month, so please, let us know if you’re interested in coming out!