[Lou]

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Ok, I admit that I have too much to say to get the report done anytime soon.  In the interim I'll post photos from the trip courtesy of our travelling and diving companion, Andy.

He uses some digital camera thingy (a Sony I think) and C & I were his lighting bee-yatches.  With our torches.  Very hi-tech....

 

[Lou]

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A little decorator crab covered in sponge and stuff, on a tube worm

 

[Lou]

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A coonstrip shrimp...

 

[Lou]

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A nudibranch & disco lichen!

 

[Lou]

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My lovely wolf-eel.  His head was approx 3 times the size of my fist.  His wife lived in his cave with him too, but she was shy...aaahh.

 

[Lou]

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Me and a king crab

 

[Lou]

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This is my favourite photo.  It's an alabaster nudibrach (aka white-lined dirona?) on HMCS Columbia.

 

[Lou]

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Sea pen....taken on the "octopus dive".  Unfortunately the octopus photos are rubbish, just too much excitement going on!!

 

[Lou]

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Nudibranch city....

 

[Lou]

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3 of the 40 that were around the boat at this point!!!  Honest!  It was fantastic...

 

[Lou]

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Anenome

 

[Lou]

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Wee crab with the strawberry anenomes that coat everything like a Barbie wonderland...

 

[Lou]

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Plumose anenome....these are about a foot tall though.

 

[Lou]

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C & I in the current

 

[Lou]

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And again....limelight hoggers!

 

[Lou]

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And doing a stop on the handy bull kelp....who needs an SMB?

 

[John Gulliver]

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Isn't the white-lined dirona exquisite? And how about those huge seapens? Vancouver Island and the rest of British Columbia is the best-kept secret among European divers. I'm longing to go back for the third time next September – have 3 "definites" for my trip already. We'd best not say too much, eh though, Lou? We don't want to turn the place into another Hurghada or Sharm.  

By the way, I've seen giant metridium (the Pacific Plumrose anenome) that are THREE feet tall!!!

 

[Lou]

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What got me about the white-lined dirona was when we read up about it and discovered that they ate snails by gnawing through their shells with their fierce teeth!  Who would've thought it?

Caroline is now besotted by nudibranchs.  Every time I looked round she was signalling nudibranch to me (put your fingers up to your head as little horns and wiggle them!!!).

It's so hard to capture it in photos though, as what you can't show is that every few inches there is a small crab, or a fish, or a shrimp, or something just odd that you haven't seen before.  The sheer quantity is awe-inspiring.

The skipper laughed at us because on some dives our bubbles hardly moved!

But please, don't go there........we only saw other divers on one out of nine dives and it would be cool to keep it that way!

Lou

 

[Dr Stevil]

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Cool stuff Lou, no need to ask if you guys had a good time.
I'd like to see these 3 feet metrididium, very cool. how big was the sea pen Lou? I clearly remember my first one (on The Breda)
Chee-az
steve

 

[Lou]

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Sea pen was about 10" tall.  No idea if that was big or small as I've never seen them before.  The site these were on was markedly different from the other sites as it had far less current and therefore had a slightly silty bottom in comparison to the sound which is swept clean every day!

Lou