Last week I picked the lock & unchained myself from the lab bench, and
finally got out for a bit of diving.  A 2-day (well, 2 half-days) drive
to us to Powell River, located on Canada's sunshine coast.  Due to poor
planning on our part (no one bothered to take into account that the only
dive shop was closed on Mondays) we spent the first day drinking and
playing mini golf.  Apparently we also bowled; but I have no memories of
the events in question...

The next day we grabbed some tanks and headed off to the most "famous"
site in Powell River, Mermaid Cove.  The cove isn't known for its life,
but rather for a statue of a mermaid sunk there by a local artist.
Normally the site has a buoy making the mermaid, but winter storms had
destroyed it (along with the entry ramp and a small wreck).  Going on a
set of old notes we managed to find the mermaid.  Unlike the first time
I visited I didn't find the site particuarily interesting - you've got a
statue, a small (15') ship wreck (nothing much left but a keel) and not
much else.  A few photo's and we surfaced.  After surfacing we realized
we had made yet another idiotic bit of planning - we'd paired our two
newbies together, and they completely missed the site.

Ooops.

We then headed 1km down the road to "octopus city".  This time we hooked
up the newbies with an experienced partner and headed off.
Unfortunately we didn't spot any of the sites namesakes, but the dive
was not a disappointment - sea fans fringed the outer edge of the reef,
and within the reef their was an amazing number of sponges, anemones,
etc, to keep us interested.  All to soon the newbies sucked down all
their air, so we returned to shore.

First day done - steak & beer rounded out the day.

The next day we headed north, to the Okenover arms.  Our goal was to hit
two small wrecks.  I'd write more, but this is all the mention this site
is worth - there was two small wrecks, but vis was crap, so not much
else was seen.

We then headed to the Malahat, a wreck of a schooner that used to run
booze into the US during prohibition.  The wreck now sits in 40-80' of
water; half-buried on its side.  We'd tried to hit this on a past trip,
and missed it completely.  This trip we got proper instructions and
found the site right-off.  This site is now in my top 10.  Much of the
wreck has disintegrated, but the ribbing is still intact, as is some of
the siding.  In among the wreckage is an intense amount of life.  Some
of the biggest lingcod I've ever seen were in among the wreckage, along
with rockfish, greenlings, anemones and pretty much every other
prototypical west-coast life you'd expect.  Beside the wreck was
nudibranch heaven - millions of the little buggers surrounded the wreck.
   Near the stern several large tanks were found, each filled with
fish.  After exhausting the batteries in my camera, and my air, I
returned to shore.  I'd love to have come back for a second dive at the
site, but it was time to pack up and move down the coast to Sechelt.  A
short drive, and ferry crossing later, we were in our new home.

The next day we did three dives - two at a site called tuwanek;
basically two small islands with extensive underwater cliffs.
Unfortunately vis wasn't stellar, but the dives did not disappoint.
Both walls were covered in anemones and sea vases.  Lots of fish were
found around each island, along with the usual selection of nudibranchs
and other invertebrates.  One of the walls goes down quite deep, giving
me the only opportunity to go deep (gotta love diving with newbies).  I
was on the prowl for cloud sponges.  Unfortunately only one small sponge
was found.  There was probably more, but it was so dark at that depth as
to make anything past 5' to dark to see.  Of course this was the one
dive where I forgot my light...

The third dive was done at a place called sandy hook.  It's well named -
nothing but an endless plane of sand broken only by the odd tuft of eel
grass.  The only reason we dived this site was crab - we had a 1-day
crabbing license in hand, and tuwanek didn't offer up any worthy of the
pot.  We spent an enjoyable 45 minutes chasing the buggers back and
forth across the sand, eventually getting 4 huge males for the dinner
pot.  One was rather feisty, and pretty much jumped out for the kill
every time the cooler lid was opened.  He also ripped the arms off a few
of the other crabs.

He was mighty tasty - crab stuffed crab.

We spent our last day doing two rather tame dives - we had three
mountain passes to drive over the next day so we wanted to take things
easy.  The first was in a palce called seargent bay.  My advice - don't
go there.  The second was in another bay, at a park called coopers
green.  Basically you circle a small pinnacle.  For a dive that was
supposed to be boring, it ended up being a great dive.  A large
(40-pounder, I'd guess) octopus made an appearance.  He wasn't too
playful, but did ink one of us right in the face.  After scaring him
into a crack we spent the rest of our time searching for wolf eels along
the base of the cliff.  None made an appearance, but caves full of
shells made it obvious they had recently been in the area.

We finished off the trip with a big BBQ, featuring three kinds of
animals, along with a lot of beer.  Early (far, far too early, IMO) the
next morning we were up and off for home.  The drive went pretty much as
planed until we got ~4hrs from home.  Sometime that morning a mountain
decided to drop 2km of mud along a stretch of the highway.  After a long
time waiting on the highway we were informed that the highway would be
opened at 10AM the next day - if we were lucky.  So we found a cheap
motel (i.e. one step above those that charge by the hour) and crashed
for the night.  Early the next morning we found that the closure was
extended - until 4 that afternoon (if we were lucky).  Rather then
spending another day with the fleas we decided to go the long ways home.
 3 hours south, almost into the US, followed by a painfully slow drive
on a single-laned highway got us home.  In 13 hours.  Home to snow.
Apparently we should have stayed on the coast...

Overall a good trip.  Hopefully a few more dives will get our newbies
into condition to do some harder stuff - I'd love to head back and do
some of the more challenging dives the area has - Texada island, the
scoochumchuck narrows (spelling is wrong), and the Chaudere would have
been nice to hit this trip.

Bryan