We staged 2 mystery dives today while hiding from the weather and really lucked out with the second one when I anchored on top of a pinnacle that was absolutely loaded with swimming scallops (aka pink and spiny scallops). Stupendous sheer drop-off and I managed to place the anchor right on the edge of the precipice. These scallops are hilarious to watch.
Read MoreThe difficulty is that island is at the entrance to Chatham Sound and the dive conditions can be quite challenging. I’m only able to offer a dive there maybe 1/2 the time due to surge, current, sea fog or high winds. Challenging?? YES. Worth it?? ABSOLUTELY according to everyone that has splashed there.
Read MoreThere are a lot of sea lions around Inian Island and while we are used to having them interact with divers, the interaction has been different this year ie. more animals, groups of sea lions visiting divers are larger, the sea lions are coming in closer than before and there is a lot more mouthing behaviour going on than usual.
Read MoreToday’s exploratory secret dive site is a spot that I have wanted to dive for some time and it does indeed have excellent potential. Divemaster/engineer A.J. trumped the scuba diving by taking a group of guests out in the inflatable for a shoreline exploration and discovering 5 grizzly bear in the process! We steamed back in the Nautilus Explorer later in the day and had a grand time watching a grizzly (coastal brown) bear rummaging around in the sedge grass on the beach. It was almost equally entertaining when a young fellow in a Boston Whaler zipped past us, beached his skiff beside a small glacier, and started shovelling ice from the glacier into the front of the Whaler. That’s truly ice cubes Alaskan style!!
Read MoreThe intense invertebrate life on Browning Wall is so thick and prolific and colourful that you cannot see the underlying rock at all. Until you’ve actually seen the brilliant reds, oranges, yellows, whites and all the amazing colours of the soft corals and other inverts, it is almost impossible to imagine how fantastic coldwater diving is. The tiny pinnacle of Dillon Rock is a story onto itself with 6+ wolfeels hiding in cracks and crevices, numerous giant pacific octopus, rarely sighted vermillion rockfish, a lovely kelp forest at the west side of the rock teeming with black rockfish, and dozens of chimera (ratfish in the shark family) cruising around on the sand bottom just off the rock. Great diving and a lovely day was had by all. Even the black bears cooperated with multiple beach appearances.
Read MoreOur British Columbia and Alaska scuba diving adventures are among my favourite trips of the year and I am anxious to get going. We were up very late last night and all the staff made one heckuva an effort to wrap this year’s intensive and extensive refit and overhaul in time to board our guests at noon.
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