Furry Creek

[creamofwheat]

Alrighty. I managed to make it out there today.

After a brief detour to the golf course golf shop and asking where people dove around the area, and after asking a bunch of locals, we were directed to Oliver's Landing. Very residential and beautiful area, I may add. I decided I wouldn't mind living there. Anyway, geared up and headed into the water. It stays shallow for quite some time, and after progressively getting deeper and deeper with no sign of life in site and being thoroughly creeped out by the pitch blackness and emptiness of where we were, we stumbled upon a GORGEOUS anemone garden. Unfortunately, I don't know my anemones well enough to be able to tell you how which ones they were, but i do know there were a few rather large plumose anemones around, a bunch of sea cucumbers (the pretty red ones that look like they are plants) and rock fish, and sole/flounders (I dont know how to tell the difference...). Unfortunately, by the time we found this very pretty garden, I was already at half air (and I was frozen to the bone due to a leaky drysuit valve, ugh) so we didnt get to spend a lot of time in the area. There was one garden area around 80-90ft, and another at about 70ft.

Water temperature was 46F, the visability was crap (perhaps 5-6 feet in the shallows, but it opened up to maybe about 15ft or so at depth), but the garden was really interesting and beautiful.

Anyway, it was quite the adventure. First finding the site, and once we did, trying to find the interesting bits. it definitely needs to be dived again.

Perhaps S. Starfish will chime in with his report (my buddy, and new to this board...say hello to all the nice locals, Kitten!!!!)

 

[ryanmacneil8448]

so you guys did furry creek and found an octo?
i did the back wall at porteau still my favorite porteau dive i got really narced as i bottomed out at 120

 

[Lightning Fish]

LF didn't you pm Henry to arrange a meet time?? Ryan where did you go? PM me and we'll head out for a dive. 2 octos are better than the 1 I found. lol.

Yes, I also e-mailed him, but I didn't see his response until Monday morning. I don't have a blackberry, , so on the weekend there is no guarantee that I will see an e-mail until it is too late.

When are you planning on going out?

Bill.

 

[S. starfish]

More about Furry Creek!
It's a pretty sweet site in a nice, very upscale location with friendly locals. When you go diving there you want to head to olviers landing, unload your gear by the mailboxes (make a right turn when you get to olivers landing) and then park your car in the parking that's about 50 feet away. yes, we're pretty lazy people. After braving an entry laden with ankle breaking rocks and some lovely large pieces of wood you'll want to swim out between the two northermost bouys. At least i think it's north, don't rememer exactly, just know that I mean AWAY from porteau cove. You have to swim out a ways befor eyou get to anything that's not just sand, a few boulders and murk. I suggest dropping down just a but beyond the bouys so it's only a 30ft descent and then heading down the slope to the gardens. The shallower of the gardens was at about 70ft, the deeper one was around 80-90 feet and located slightly northwest of the shallower one. Personaly I like the deeper one better. Hazards for this site are the death rocks at the entry, possible boat traffic and downwelling currents. I hate those.
I'll see if i can draw up a map of where we were for anybody for anybody who may want to dive furry creek but hasn't already.

Now a review of the dive. We after entering the water we decided to swim up the rock face aways and descend there. This landed us in about 20ft of very murky water, which sucked. We surfaced and swam out a ways and descended to find a bit of current and a very dark, featureless, muddy slope occupied by a single dead crab. deciede to swim against the current towards the residential area, after what a while we encountered the first anenomoe garden, which was a blessing to the eyes after abotu 25min of nothing but mud mud and a dead crab. This place, was great and i could have spent a long while there exploring but sadly our no deco time was running short. we did find one octo den between the two gardens but it was unoccipued. Definately going back there.

 

[Les]

Hey Ryan is this the same spot we dove?? Did not realize it was called Olivers Landing if it is. anyways kinda sounds like our dive their until we hit the wall(on the squamish side of the site) So COW were the gardens on the home side of the site? There is a safer way to enter the water. Follow the sidewalk around to the backyard area of the homes (maybe the 2nd yard)and look for the stone staircase. head down and easy as pie entry. My 2nd dive there was better and deeper but stil no octo there for me to see. How deep is the left side of the site behind the homes? Ryan when you gonna take me to the best dive site around..
safe diving all,
Les

 

[Henry]

Follow Les' directions to get in the water. It is the second stone path and the only one with rock stairs. It continues on to a path cleared out by one of the residents who launches his kayak from there.

Swim to the second and inner buoy and descent down the line to about 20 feet. Swim with the sandy slope on your right to 50 feet until you run in to the wall. drop down to the bottom of the wall at that point and continue the dive with the wall on your right. There is lots of sponges, grunt sculpins, red irish lords, great sculpins, sailfin sculpins. The octopus is currently residing at the obvious corner crack at about 92 feet of water. Just past this point, the wall will start getting shallower and this would be a good point to turn the dive and ascent to a shallower depth.

Side note: There are some pretty angry people that live there. Beware of the lady with the two dogs, she will tow your car if you are slightly in the wrong spot. She hates divers and poor people who tread on her turf. Also beware of the lady that lives in front of the entry point on the second floor. She will also tell you that you have no right to be in her space as you obviously cannot afford it.

Ignore her and continue diving. I just pretended I couldn't hear her through my hood until she gave up yelling at us.

The rest of the residents are very cool and some of the old timers even used to dive. Please, please, please be quite and respectful of the neighborhood. I hate to lose this site due to lots of diver noises such as blowing tank valves and really loud conversations on the water that carries pretty far.

Thanks and good diving.
Henry
www.edgediving.com