Victoria Vis conditions?

[MarkH]

Had an awesome dive with Wedivebc this evening at Mackenzie Bight. Vis was only around 10 feet in the shallows, but it cleared up to around 100 (!) feet deeper down. I saw 2 dogfish, a cloud sponge, lots of boot sponges, tiger rockfish, etc...
Max depth was 140 feet. Mr. Rebreather of course went deeper. The only dissapointing part was that my camera was acting up all weird. It's one of those newfangled cameras (from the 70's) with an electronic shutter. Most of the time, the strobe would fire, but the shutter wouln't trip. Some tomes the strobe would fire and then the shutter would trip about a second later. Sometimes the strobe wouldn't fire. Needless to say, the pictures didn't turn out except for a couple that were borderline.
But it doesn't really matter. It was so great that, barring the apocalypse, I'm going back tomorrow. You missed out Hyperlimits. It was like the tropics without all that pesky warm water.

 

[Hyper-limits]

Had an awesome dive with Wedivebc this evening at Mackenzie. You missed out Hyperlimits. It was like the tropics without all that pesky warm water.

too bad, Can't wait to dive home again.

 

[naclydogg]

Had an awesome dive with Wedivebc this evening at Mackenzie Bight. Vis was only around 10 feet in the shallows, but it cleared up to around 100 (!) feet deeper down. I saw 2 dogfish, a cloud sponge, lots of boot sponges, tiger rockfish, etc...
Max depth was 140 feet. Mr. Rebreather of course went deeper. The only dissapointing part was that my camera was acting up all weird. It's one of those newfangled cameras (from the 70's) with an electronic shutter. Most of the time, the strobe would fire, but the shutter wouln't trip. Some tomes the strobe would fire and then the shutter would trip about a second later. Sometimes the strobe wouldn't fire. Needless to say, the pictures didn't turn out except for a couple that were borderline.
But it doesn't really matter. It was so great that, barring the apocalypse, I'm going back tomorrow. You missed out Hyperlimits. It was like the tropics without all that pesky warm water.

Get rid of that new technology and put one of these in your waterproof housing.

http://users.rcn.com/stewoody/index.htm

 

[GlazierB]

Going back tomorrow huh? Anytime in particular? Would love to get out for a dive with others in duals.

 

[wedivebc]

Going back tomorrow huh? Anytime in particular? Would love to get out for a dive with others in duals.

I'm thinking of going back there this thursday. You diving doubles?

 

[MarkH]

By the way, vis on this second dive (Friday afternoon) was about the same. It was around 10 feet down to 30 feet deep where it started to clear up. By the time I reached 70 feet, vis was around 100 feet. It seemed like yesterday the good vis started a bit shallower, around 50-60 feet deep or so. I saw another dogfish shark a few times during the dive, but I had the camera set to the "self-portrait" timer feature and the shark wasn't waiting around. The cloud sponge photo (and two other attempts where the camera kept falling over) cost me 1000 psi. I guess that's why PADI doesn't encourage solo diving. -It makes it hard to take pictures with a diver in them.

 

[ChillyWaters]

Going back tomorrow huh? Anytime in particular? Would love to get out for a dive with others in duals.

So, the goal today was to show my usual dive buddy some octopus at Henderson -- after my recent luck.

The first dive was to 75' or so, on the other side of the second reef. No octopus on the way out, but did manage to spot another dogfish. Found an octopus on the way back, but it scurried from sight, and she did not see it.

Second dive we went to about 40' and found the same huge octopus as last week. It was quite active, and we were a bit worried about aggravating it. She has now had her first GPO experience. Fun. We even managed a 55 min dive with her on a TINY 50CF tank... 22min at 40', and the rest at about 25'. Saw lots of stuff though: pipe fish, great sculpin, buffalo sculpin, rock sole, ...

Vis was crap about 50', but great below.

- ChillyWaters

 

[GlazierB]

I'm thinking of going back there this thursday. You diving doubles?

Yeah... Recently made the jump. Been a learning process for sure... Getting used to them before furthering my education.

 

[MarkH]

Vis at McKenzie Bight wasn't as good today as the last couple of times. It seemed better in the shallows (15 feet), but deeper down it wasn't as good as before. It was still pretty good though. Below 70 feet, vis was around 50 feet. -Saw 2 more dogfish, but they were much more skittish than last time. There's great topography there. I'll probably go back a couple more times this week.

 

[MarkH]

Yes, I went back to McKenzie Bight this afternoon, but this time I walked down to the end of the trail and entered there. Vis was around 30 feet at the surface, 50 feet 20 feet deep and well over 100 feet down deep. It was seriously the best vis I've seen anywhere in the world. There were a few small cloud sponges, boot sponges, and big jellyfish. -The usual Saanich Inlet stuff, but the vis made it awesome. Off-gassing in the shallows was fun with the swarms of perch that wouldn't leave me alone.