Into the Yukon: Burma Road
Date: May 31, 2008
Location: Yukon, Wreck Alley
Time: 11:15 am
Conditions: 4 foot swells, with the occasional five footer and some white caps. Rockin and rollin on the surface, calmer down below.
Viz [Surprisingly]: 20-30 ft.
Dive Length : 35 minutes
Temperature: 50° F on the bottom, 54° F on the surface
Max Depth: 95 ft.
Mix: 26%
Dive Buddies: Iron Man Charlie and Barb
Critters Seen: Peltodoris nobilis, Dendronotus iris w/eggs, Hermisssenda crassicornis, Flabellina iodine, Navanax inermis, Doriopsilla albopunctata, Triopha catalinae, Polycera tricolor, Diaulula sandiegensis, California Sea Cucumbers, Blacksmith, Greenlings, Masking Crab, Pelagophycus porra [Elkhorn Kelp] and Macrocystis pyrifera.
Remarks:
Funny how sometimes you cant fill a boat even by begging nicely, but we managed to get Iron Man Charlie to come out with us to the Yukon, NOAA Jim having been called to annual duty cleaning piers in Los Angeles County for the weekend. It was strange going out without him: sort of like leaving dock without the propeller or something.
The forecast had called for 10 to 15 knot winds and 4 to 5 foot swells with the occasional white cap, and we were not disappointed.
By the time we had tied off to the Stern buoy of the Yukon, the Scuba-Do was bouncing up and down pretty good and we were all getting a bit queasy and anxious to get in the water, so without further ado we suited up and jumped in.
The plan was to drop down the Stern line and let Charlie lead us through the Burma Road cutout in the rear, through to the first cutout on the starboard, or top side, which is exactly what we did.
While Barb and I waited at the cutout, I chivalrously motioned for Charlie to go first, followed by Barb, with me bringing up the rear.
As you go in, there are a bunch of pipes and other strange objects hanging down in your way, which you have to duck around to get past, but when youre past these, its pretty much a straight shot through the entire ship, down to the bow, with cutouts visible on either side pretty much all the way down.
Our goal was simply to go to the first to cutout in the roof, ie: the Starboard side, which faces up an exit there; no big deal.
Once past the pipes, you pass into another antechamber, which unfortunately for them, was filled with California Sea cucumbers, and as never fails, my passing by dislodged a number of them from the wall, creating the usual sea cucumber avalanche as I went by; I could almost hear them muttering and cursing me as they disappeared down into blackness below. :11:
I noticed Barbara scanning the walls with the new x2 reading lenses recently installed in her mask, excitedly pointing out baby nudibranches that Charlie and I would have needed a portable scanning electron microscopes in order to see.
Since everyone knows that I only know two species of nudibranch, I obviously received assistance from Barb in listing them in order of their Latin names above.
Charlie popped out in the kelp forest on the starboard side above first, followed by me and then Barb, who had to be dragged reluctantly from her nudibranch festival down in the bowels of the ship.
However, as it we exited the ship and dropped down on the hull side, we were delighted to encounter even more on the sand below, in between the Sea Pens and Tube-Dwelling anemones: a gorgeous Dendronotus iris in the process of laying eggs, and a 4 inch Peltodoris nobilis.
From here, we glided up and over Graffiti alley and down onto the superstructure, where we found ourselves on the Rear Guns, just behind the Radio Tower.
Here, there are two large openings that were obviously part of the original superstructure, with flanged openings, but the term for the always escapes me.
Anyway, with Charlie and Barb waiting outside, I ducked in and made an immediate right turn into a short chamber, which was obviously a dead end, so I turned around and came out.
Barb went in and immediately began spying more tiny new, nearly invisible nudibranchs, visible only to her new x2 reading lenses and began gesturing frantically to us to get our attention.
Charlie and I took one look inside, and chuckling, shook our heads and left, knowing it was hopeless trying to spot these little babies on the wall.
We had just come from a comical conversation on the boat, about how as you enter your forties and fifties, CRS [Cant Remember Sh**] morphs into CSS [Cant See Sh**], followed inexorably, in later years, as we all know, by CHS [Cant Hear Sh**], so we werent even going to tempt fate on that one and left Barbara to her nudibranchs and x2 readers.
I had forgotten that the two chambers were connected, so when she disappeared into the bowels of the first one, I was momentarily alarmed, until I saw that her pop out through the one below. Sounds like a trick I pulled on someone else recently.
What goes around comes around!
We continued on from here until we reached the Radio Tower, where the 50° F water was beginning to take its toll and we all mutually agreed to begin turning around.
We cruised around to the Mortar Bay, where I led to everyone through the hole cut in the top and up into the Macrocystis waiving gently in the current above.
Your Barb was able to spot a rather large Navanax, wrapped around a stipe of Macrocystis and we all paused here to admire it.
With my hands beginning to burn in the cold and deco fast approaching, I gestured and Id like to go up, and everyone readily agreed.
Pausing at the 40 ft level to admire the 30 ft. visibility, our attention was once again drawn to the absolutely huge fronds of the 60 ft. long Elkhorn Kelp, growing on the stern end of the Starboard side. The fronds alone stretched 15-20 ft. horizontally in the water column.
First I swam over to it, followed by Barb, who, being in a playful mood, wrapped one of the fronds around her face, like a shawl, while Charlie and I hovered nearby, chuckling into our masks.
From the safety stop, we could see the water above churning above our heads and knew not much had changed on the surface.
Sure enough, as soon as we a popped to the surface, we were greeted with the boat bouncing up and down rather violently in 4 ft swells and it took some doing to get all our gear on board without getting smacked in the face with the ladder.
But, eventually, everyone was onboard, grinning from ear-to-ear from another spectacular day in/on Lady Yuke.
[Sorry for the rather monotonous string of Yukon Only dive reports lately, but trust me when I say that conditions here recently have really not warranted going much beyond Wreck Ally, say to Pt Loma, where it would have been fairly nasty today, surge being what it is down there. As soon as conditions permit, we hope to venture back out Pt Loma,
Scripps Canyon and other spots, such as the P-38].
Dive safe, everyone
.
Mikey
:zen:
, which then didn't work and Navy Dan had to go back and get a couple HP 80s from his shop, we were finally off to Wreck Alley after being delayed mere hour or so.
