Porteau this weekend/part 2

[DaleC]

A whiz I am not! Akirawut himself (and his wife) has been a victim of my Porteau "wanderings"

For this dive I swam out to the Grant Hall, dropped down and decended to 80' then turned right and followed that depth contour. After a while I hit it. That's a bit of a longer route and there is a more direct bearing you can take off of the granthall amidships but I forgot it.

I have seen that breezeway in the debris field many times but never knew what it was until I did some research today. It was only on the video that I saw the doorway shape and hatch clearly and even the latches to dog them down. I also only realised that the circle on the foredeck was a former gun emplacement.

I wonder where more of the superstructure is. I don't think it's all there. There is some debris up slope to the SE of the Nakaya and I will have to check it out next time now that I know what it is I'm looking for.

 

[StuartT]

If you want you can swim out to the last boundry buoy of the park and follow it down. Puts you in about 65 feet and if the viz is decent you can see the wreck from there. if not It's north/northeast of the chain at the bottom probably around 30 feet away

 

[Sintax604]

Great video Dale, thanks for posting!
It's nice to finally be able to put a name to some of the debris down there... I always wonder what the "steering assembly" is when I see it. Now I know!

So, now that you've done your research, will you be trying to piece together (he he, get it?) the remains of the VT100? This would be a much greater challenge but nice to see as I don't think many people make it out there often.

 

[Slamfire]

There's no longer a buoy over the Nakaya? When did that happen? I guess I haven't gone around Porteau in a long time. I know there have been a couple of times when we've tried Porteau and it's been so crowded we gave up on it and went to Furry Creek. This last Saturday we arrived at Porteau at around 10:30ish (the guys took longer than I thought getting to pick up their tanks). It looked like there were a lot of divers in the water. It also looked like there was some current. We asked a guy just coming out about the vis and he said it was 10' or less.

So we gave up on Porteau and headed to Whytecliff. Brandon from Ocean Quest had told us that the vis on Whytecliff for Friday was very good. Your video shows more than 10' of vis, but the guy was probably referring to vis around the Granthall and Centennial. It was probably mucked up by a lot of scuba classes.

Vis in Whytecliff turned out pretty good. At least 30 ft. It turned out to be a very relaxing 79 min dive where my SCR for the entire dive dropped to .47, which is a nice drop from my .55 average.

 

[DaleC]

So, now that you've done your research, will you be trying to piece together (he he, get it?) the remains of the VT100? This would be a much greater challenge but nice to see as I don't think many people make it out there often.

Funny you should mention that. I'm going to go out and try to video it later this fall (waiting for a bit better vis). As bad as I am at navigating sometimes I've always managed to hit that one so far (5 or 6 times). I think it's because I am predictably dominant with my right fin so when I follow a bearing out to the correct depth I just turn right and follow the contour. Or I follow Randy; I can't remember which.

Gabriel, the vis around the mid wrecks was sucky but it cleared up nicely at depth. Even still I managed to do a little wreck "penetration" on the dredger, complete with a WWF showdown between me and a big ol ling! There were some very nice schools of perch and tubesnouts around the I beams and that GPO under the sailboat is still there. I keep chuckling at the thought of an unsuspecting diver accidentally sticking their fin near the den and getting a BIG surprise! Evil I know but funny just the same.

 

[rob1967]

If you want you can swim out to the last boundry buoy of the park and follow it down. Puts you in about 65 feet and if the viz is decent you can see the wreck from there. if not It's north/northeast of the chain at the bottom probably around 30 feet away

Yup, Stuart is exactly right. If the viz is good, you can see the wreck from the bottom of the boundary buoy furthest to right as you look out to the water (i.e., to the North-East).

At the bottom of the buoy, the anchor is actually a concrete highway divider. If the viz is bad, you may not be able to see the Nakaya from there. However, last time I was there, I noticed a short length of chain coming off the concrete highway divider, laying on the bottom, and someone had conveniently left it pointing towards the Nakaya. Follow the direction of the chain, and you will swim right onto the Nakaya, about 30 feet away.