Squamish oil spill

[DiverDebbie]

It's tragic that there's yet another oil spill. Has any one heard how the one in Squamish on Friday has effected the diving at Porteau Cove? We typically take students there one of their 2 open water days, but from the sounds of it there won't be any diving there for awhile. This is all I found that mentioned Porteau:

"Also on Saturday afternoon, park rangers in Porteau Cove, less than 13 miles south of Squamish, were advising campers to stay away from the beach, as wind was pushing oil toward shore."

 

[jeckyll]

Sounds like Whitecliff will be even busier than usual...

 

[DiverDebbie]

fabulous... thanks for pointing that out... but where else is there to take open water students without taking a boat or a ferry? Please don't say Deep Cove with it's 1/2 inch visibility and bottom that sucks divers in ("I thought I had a class here somewhere?" lol) So... for those of you not with students... please go to Ansell ! It really is a nice dive site for experienced divers

 

[jeckyll]

Debbie: I've managed to have nice dives at whitecliff even with 20+ students in the water. Just not in the bay

And I am not a fan of hiking Ansell. Especially if planning 2 dives (like we did last night at Whitecliff).

Back to the original topic, does anyone know the extent and timlines for the cleanup yet?

 

[MarkH]

My guess is that anything still floating has evaporated already, but I could be wrong.

 

[MarkH]

My guess is that anything still floating has evaporated already, but I could be wrong.

I just read on some online news thing that it was that high-viscosity stuff that needs to be heated before stuffing it in the engine, not regular marine-type diesel like I thought so it hangs around much longer.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Rats! We're doing our annual Porteau Cove camping-diving trip next week-end (18th through 20th) ... looks like we'll be doing more camping than diving this year ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DiverDebbie]

That's bad timing Bob with your Porteau camping trip. You know if you camp there you're gonna wanna dive. I personally wouldn't risk destroying my gear (never mind my health) until it's completely fine. You could do day trips to Whytecliff, Kelvin or Ansell (if it's ok there), or maybe you should change the location for this year and head up the sunshine coast? There are spots there where you can camp and dive.

 

[creamofwheat]

Apparently most of the oil in the water has already been cleaned up and they are just working on the shorelines now. That's what they said on the news last night. So diving should be fine pretty much anywhere, including Porteau.

 

[greatwhitepike]

I did a couple of dives at Porteau on Sat. around 4:00 PM the campers in the area were told as long as you don't smell anyhing you'll be OK and the wind seemed to be puhing the spill more towards the North. Everything looked fine from the surface and it was my last day out there so I put on a cheep wetsuit I'd just bought and checked it out. The conditions were identical to the weekend before when I first got to Van, poor for the first 20' of descent then clearing nicely to 20-30 feet. We did a lap around the Nakaya first and then for the second dive we tried to find the biggest lings. It wasn't until our safety stop on the last dive that I really started thinking about the spill again wich was very creapy all of a sudden because the thermocline did in fact look very much like a clear oil. After surfacing as my friend and I rinsed our gear there was no residues or rainbows in the water or on our gear nor was there any scents but if your headed out there to check things out keep this in mind. Also if it was oil or fuel that we saw, it will be very difficult to clean up I hope 3M can come up with some more solutions they done some great work in the past.