I get to do a lot of dives each week - all for fun. I have a wonderful wife who accepts this passion, advising me only to come home safe. I also have some wonderful dive buddies to share my experiences with. It's been a long time since I had a dive that I was glad was over. Sure I've been cold, had to take a wiz or been hungry during my 10' stop, but I've always enjoyed my dives.
Tonight's dive stood out high and above all the good days. Tonight was a bit like waking up to a blue bird day and 3' of fresh Utah powder. You realize that you will cut fresh tracks for, oh say the whole day! In other words extraordinary.
One of my regular buddies and another SB member - PuckVirus had heard that last night there had been a rash of six gill shark sightings. TBone wanted to dive Cove 2, but in a different way than what we normally do. His plan was to drop down to about 85' head nearly south towards Salties and look for sharks. I figured what the heck. I hadn't done that profile yet, so game on. We decided that we would go south for about 14 minutes and then turn towards shore and go up to about 50'. Once there we would head back towards Cove 2 and pick up the dolphins by the Honey Bear. We found out from a previous group that a large GPO was tucked away there.
We did our dive plan and dropped down to about 85' with the bottom being at 95'. We saw one little red octo and a bunch of Batfish. Lots of mud and not much else. We did our turn and ascended up to 50' when a harbor seal decided that our HID's were doing a wonderful job of showing him where the seal snacks were to be found. I wish those seals would learn how to frog kick so as not to stir up the bottom. So far the dive was uneventful and frankly pretty boring. We got to where the bottom was at 55' and we were at about 50' when we made our second turn to parallel the shore and head towards the Honey Bear. We hadn't made our turn for long when what should I see at eye level coming directly toward us, but a beautiful six gill shark. We figure it was about 9' long. It came directly at us and with about 3' between us it veered off. We were so silent you could have heard a pin drop into the mud. For the next five minutes this shark swam circles around us, passed overhead and on a couple of occasions swam within arms length beneath us. It just seemed curious and was completely non aggressive. None of us could believe how long it spent with us and towards the end I wondered if we were going to have use care in going back to shore. No was the answer. When it's curiosity was appeased, it swam off in the direction it had come and I'm sure it passed near some very unaware divers.
Awestruck we left the scene and found our way to the Honey Bear where in fact there was a HUGE GPO tucked away. We could see it, in all it's splendor. Another whiteish one was seen at the brick pile as well. We finished our 60 minute dive adding another red octo and a very nice grunt sculpin.
This was a truly memorable dive. Thanks to NWGrateful diver for loaning me his HID light while mine was is being fixed. If it weren't for him I never would have seen this shark. Nice dive plan TBone. PuckVirus - glad you could join us. For those two it is there first 6 gill sighting.
Tonight's dive stood out high and above all the good days. Tonight was a bit like waking up to a blue bird day and 3' of fresh Utah powder. You realize that you will cut fresh tracks for, oh say the whole day! In other words extraordinary.
One of my regular buddies and another SB member - PuckVirus had heard that last night there had been a rash of six gill shark sightings. TBone wanted to dive Cove 2, but in a different way than what we normally do. His plan was to drop down to about 85' head nearly south towards Salties and look for sharks. I figured what the heck. I hadn't done that profile yet, so game on. We decided that we would go south for about 14 minutes and then turn towards shore and go up to about 50'. Once there we would head back towards Cove 2 and pick up the dolphins by the Honey Bear. We found out from a previous group that a large GPO was tucked away there.
We did our dive plan and dropped down to about 85' with the bottom being at 95'. We saw one little red octo and a bunch of Batfish. Lots of mud and not much else. We did our turn and ascended up to 50' when a harbor seal decided that our HID's were doing a wonderful job of showing him where the seal snacks were to be found. I wish those seals would learn how to frog kick so as not to stir up the bottom. So far the dive was uneventful and frankly pretty boring. We got to where the bottom was at 55' and we were at about 50' when we made our second turn to parallel the shore and head towards the Honey Bear. We hadn't made our turn for long when what should I see at eye level coming directly toward us, but a beautiful six gill shark. We figure it was about 9' long. It came directly at us and with about 3' between us it veered off. We were so silent you could have heard a pin drop into the mud. For the next five minutes this shark swam circles around us, passed overhead and on a couple of occasions swam within arms length beneath us. It just seemed curious and was completely non aggressive. None of us could believe how long it spent with us and towards the end I wondered if we were going to have use care in going back to shore. No was the answer. When it's curiosity was appeased, it swam off in the direction it had come and I'm sure it passed near some very unaware divers.
Awestruck we left the scene and found our way to the Honey Bear where in fact there was a HUGE GPO tucked away. We could see it, in all it's splendor. Another whiteish one was seen at the brick pile as well. We finished our 60 minute dive adding another red octo and a very nice grunt sculpin.
This was a truly memorable dive. Thanks to NWGrateful diver for loaning me his HID light while mine was is being fixed. If it weren't for him I never would have seen this shark. Nice dive plan TBone. PuckVirus - glad you could join us. For those two it is there first 6 gill sighting.
