Deep Cove, Shore Dive. Saturday!

[Tatsubon]

Hi to all Vancouver Divers.

Intend to try a shore dive at Strathcona Park in North Vancouver on Saturday.
http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/Canada/Vancouver/Strathcona/index.htm
Those interested please PM me for details.

Tatsubon

 

[DiverDebbie]

I've dove Deep Cove with a class when conditions were horrible even at Whytecliff, and I've dove Cates park twice, last time for my IE. Conditions were the worst I've ever dove and nothing at all to see. We had nasty currents at Cates, and absolute ZERO viz. at Deep Cove. We had to take students down one at a time. Sorry, but just warning you, because IMO... a total waste of time.

 

[Tatsubon]

We dove at Woodlands instead of Strathcona, due to a last minute change in plans. While waiting for the tide to rise, we decided to drive down and check out this other location since we still had over 2 hours till the tide peaked. Woodlands seemed like a better sheltered area for practicing simple maneuvers like nav. skills.
And the water looked very clear from the docks. I enjoyed the white sandy bottom and spent lots of time in the shallows. Vis was great in the shallows around 25'-30'! There was a fresh water creek feeding that area and the water was slightly less salty. Felt like we were swimming in a salt water pool in Kits. In some shallow areas I might dare say cristal clear.

The bottom was sandy and if you stayed off the bottom there was lots of interesting things to see. Caught my first glimps of several interesting creatures. Here is a short list of what I saw.

Cats Eye Comb Jellyfish - one of the most beautyful things I had ever seen and it was only the size of a small pea! It had small specks of red and green dots sparkeling in its body. You could even see its little cilia moving along its body! How I wished I had a UW camera to take some picture.
Moon Jellyfish - Still real tiny about the size of a dime.
Red Jellyfish
Purple & Sunflower Stars - some really big ones down there
Rock & Dungenous Crabs
Clams - even saw tubes sticking out of the sand filtering water.
Pile Perches
Salmon Fries
Flounders
& ...
Pipe Fish - This was a truly fasinating find. I first thought that it was a type of sea horse because of its similar head design. Had to get home to do some googling to find out what it was. Saw 2 of them in the sands and would not have been able to see them if they were in the grasses.

All in all, I had a great time staying in the shallows. Lots of light to see whats down there and I took my time to scope out the local creatures. One could easly snorkel around and forget about bringing tanks if you did not want to venture out deeper. It was a relaxing 45 mins playing around and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Next time I will be bringing a dolly, to cart gear down to the docks. That was a long walk to the docks. Must have done 5 trips one way to carry all our gear. Walking up hill to get the car was another workout. That steep hill looked endless.

I would not mind going back there again to explore it further. As I said we took it easy and did not venture out very far at all(100' from the dock, mostly closer to shore side). Max depth that day was only 15' and I had no problems with it. Lots of friendly kayakers and canoes came by and no power boats buzzed close by at all.
Next time I want to check out whats out at the other side of the light marker where it will be much deeper.

Tatsubon

PS - Might check it out again next weekend. If the weather is nice. Anyone interesed should keep in contact.

 

[TheWetRookie]

Hey, good to hear that is was a good dive. It seems most places had good vis on Sat from those that I had talked to, even whytecliff was clear in the shallows.

 

[creamofwheat]

Tip about Woodlands and the hiking...drive your car down to the dock, unload, drive back to the parking spot by the stop sign. gear up and do dive. exit water. gear down. walk up to where your parked car is. drive it back down to the dock. load car. drive home.

makes it waaay easier...eliminates the hiking with the gear.

glad you had a good dive.

 

[DiverDebbie]

Glad to hear you had such a good dive. Very lucky about the viz! Wow. Wish I'd been diving this weekend. umm... dumb question, but where is Woodlands?

 

[Tatsubon]

We did drop off all of our gear and then parked our car up that hill.

The walk to the dock was still over 100'.

And to get to the car it was easly a 200' walk up hill.

Here is a link showing you some pictures of Woodlands.
To get there you just drive up to the base of Mt Seymour and just before the gate, turn right on the next street and follow the tiny green signs on the lamp post. Its about 5 to 6 kms drive to get there. Be aware that there are many points where its only a single car lane, so take it slow and be aware of mtn bikers and other cars.
Oh and make sure that you watch out for that hair pin turn and use that mirror to check for on comming traffic.

http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/Canada/Vancouver/Woodlands/index.htm

Ciao!

Tatsubon

 

[ryanmacneil8448]

damn! i missed it oh well next time i guess