I discovered this past week that if you ever want to go diving and have nothing planned... post to Facebook and/or call Ocean Pro...lol. I posted on Thursday, while waiting for Jenn to try on clothes at the mall, that I wanted to go diving this weekend and followed that up with a call to Chloe at the shop to see if there were any fun dives planned. Chloe let me know that nothing had been planned for fun dives but she would make some calls for me and let me know. Before long I had gotten a bunch of messages on Facebook.
Ward telling me we should plan a boat dive,
Ashley inviting me up to Sechelt to dive with her for the weekend, a couple people letting me know they wish they could go and even an invite to dive in a friends bathtub!....lol. No sooner had I read and responded to these messages, and Chloe called me back to let me know she had gotten me dives...lol. Again, I am very fortunate to have the friends I do and the shop I go to. So my plans for this weekend were to dive on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday with friends if it could be sorted out, and Sunday with Allen Kyte (an instructor from Ocean Pro) and his advanced class up at Whytecliff.
As it turned out Ashley was leaving to Sechelt before we could get anything arranged and that bathtub just didn't have the depth I wanted nor (I hope) any critters....lol. But I was very fortunate to have an amazing offer from Ward to take his boat out for a dive, this was going to be an epic weekend! So out to the shop following work yesterday to pick-up my drysuit rental and get all the times from Chloe for Sundays dives, then home to get a hold of Ward to get the details on where the boat was. With details all gathered and equipment all put together and me bouncing around the house like a kid on Christmas eve, bedtime couldn't come early enough! But, just before bed, Jenn (my much better half) made a comment to me that I probably should have caught hours earlier when speaking to Ward about his boat... it was in the US.... I don't have a passport... this was going to be an issue! With a quick message to Ward to ensure my wife was correct (which she was) and let him know I was unfortunately unable to cross the border we decided to leave the final decision on what to do until this morning. Morning arrived soon enough and with a call to Ward we discussed options and finally decided he would meet at my house, I would drive from there and he could show me a couple new locations I have never seen before.
It wasn't long before we were on our way and headed towards Burnaby and the mysterious Whiskey Cove in the Village of Belcarra. With Ward as navigator it was a nice quick drive and we were on-site in no time with gear ready and changed into our drysuits. A short walk through the woods and down to the shore line brought us out between a few houses and their docks of beautiful boat which I will never be able to afford...lol. For the first part of the dive we decided to go out to the right and work our way along the wall to see what we might find down along there and see if we could get any decent pictures. As it turned out there was not much to see along the wall, a few critters here and there but in the murky water it was difficult at times to see ahead and times when the only thing you could make out of your buddy was the outline or the occasional flash of the camera. Eventually we could see a shelf or a reef just out from the wall heading into slightly deeper water so we turned and followed it to see if there was anything more exciting. With a few fish and an amazingly huge sole laying still on the ground. Good thing Ward pointed it out or I would have swam right past....lol. At about half air Ward signaled for us to ascend for a moment to find our exact bearing, only being in about 25 - 30 feet of water this was no issue. Once we had established our location (not where we thought we were...lol) we realigned with shore (not off by much) and descended back to depth to continue our exploration of the reef, heading in the direction of our exit.
With dive one complete we headed back to the vehicle to strip down our gear and figure out what was next. After a short discussion we concluded we would go and dive the VT-100. Now on the trip up to Belcarra this morning Ward was telling me a bit about the VT-100. You see originally it was called the
YMS-159 and served as wooden hulled mine sweeper in the 40's before it was decommissioned and sold to the Vancouver Tug Boat Co in 1955. Now the story goes that back in the day when a ship was decommissioned the weapons had to be shut down but not necessarily removed, so this tug was motoring the waterways with 50mm and two 20mm guns on deck. Now apparently the residents at the time were not fond of having this ship in their marina and according to legend it was set on fire by vandals and burned below the water line and left to sink to the watery grave where it remains to this day.
Now upon arrival at the new site and parked along the side of the road in one of only three available spots for the public along this road, we did a little site tour before donning our gear. Ward took me along the road back about 30 feet behind where we parked to where a small path (more of a goat trail..lol) was cut between the low blackberry bushes and down a steep path to the rocky beach. Now this was our entry point and we would be traversing this with all our gear on...weee. Despite this I was excited, any dive is a good dive, one with a friend is even better, so I was ready to go regardless of the entry and exit. Now again, understand all I can see as I am changing and gearing up is the beautiful houses lining the opposite side of the road and lining our side... well built, gently sloping, stairwells leading to docks right at the water level.. and on the street level... little gates marked
"Private". All these beautiful "potential" entries, with their easily accessible docks right on the water and here we are rock climbing with a ton of gear strapped to our backs...lol. Needless to say, it was not the easiest entry to traverse but with the help of a little rope someone tied up, we made it down and across the rocks and into the water. Now, Wards best recollection of the approximate location of the VT-100 was quite a surface swim from the entry point about 300 feet from shore in about 55 - 60 feet of water (sometimes deeper, tide dependent) . Now, keeping in mind that the shoreline and locations of many of the docks changes from year to year we were relying on best guess to find the boat. When reaching the approximate location, masks went on, regs went in and we signaled down... After a slow descent we reached dead on 60 feet and set off, me following behind Ward and keeping my camera ready in case we came across anything of interest. It wasn't more than a few kicks and Ward signaled with his light, right there in front of us was debris... debris of the wooden ship kind... debris of the sunken wooden ship kind...lol. We knew we were close! A little further along was some more debris, and then more, sunken bottles, boards and even an old boot! We continued our swim and photographed many of the items found including a weight pouch with weight inside...lol, but alas, my air was not meant to last forever (Wards apparently is meant to last a lot longer than mine though...lol) and we were forced to head back and start towards our safety stop depth of 50 feet. Then maintain depth and head in the direction of our exit slowly ascending towards safety stop depth. At 750 psi it was time for our safety stop at 15 feet. At depth Ward released his SMB (surface marker buoy) for details on the use of these see
To Drift or Not To Drift..... Watching our computers closely and monitoring our time we hovered at 15 feet for our 3 minutes and then making our way to the surface VERY carefully, as not everyone knows what the marker means, we surfaced and looked towards shore to evaluate our surface swim. We were WAY out there...lol. Now with Ward weighed down with an extra 10lbs with the recently found weight pouch he was off center in the water and I am not all that centered at the best of times...lol, this was looking to be an interesting swim in. It didn't take long for Ward, (who's mind never stops working) to realize he could attach his SMB to the weight pouch and float the bag back in saving him a lot of the work... YEAH!!. Our surface swim gave us a chance to look at the docks we would love to have if money were no object and think about the boats we could have if we had those docks... and money were not an object...lol. Back on the beach it was time for the climb... this actually took some talent, timing your steps and pulling on the rope and trying to keep all your weight straight up and down so as to stay balanced... and Ward had to do it twice as he left his SMB and newly acquired weight bag, back on shore to reduce the strain of the first climb.
Again, back at the vehicle, stripping off gear, and packing it away in our totes, cases and bags. It was a great time to reflect on another amazing day of diving. We didn't find the VT-100, Ward is fairly certain that we were right on it when we dropped but swam away from it instead of in to it. For me it just means there are more mysteries for me to uncover in Bedwell Bay and more reasons for me to return to see if I can locate the boat of legends and be able to say that I too have seen the wooden hulled minesweeper of 1942 that calls the sands of Bedwell Bay home.
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