December in Howe Sound

Tell us your tale of coming nose-to-nose with a 6 gill [--this big--], or about your vacation to turquoise warm waters. Share your adventures here!
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Sharkb8
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December in Howe Sound

Post by Sharkb8 »

A few weeks ago the weather forecast was not looking great for a Keystone dive, so my buddy Matt and I decided to head up to Vancouver to visit the Sea Dragon crew and dive off the Topline. We lucked out with only 7 divers on the boat and surprisingly calm seas considering the forecasted gale warning. The first dive was on the north side of Bowen Island. We had some nice wall structure with several mucky slopes that we were told would only be short lived if you finned past. We got to see some interesting sea star varieties and plenty of nudies and feather stars. The first muck slope passed quickly, but the second took almost 20 minutes to get across. This was probably due to the healthy population of squat lobsters, tube dwelling anemones, and GIANT giant nudies who were looking festively plump with all the snacks. Unfortunately we didn't see any do the dive of death, probably because they were too full and didn't want to risk cramps. The second dive was on the south side of Hutt Island. The draw for this site was several clusters of cloud sponges in the 60 ft range which is shallower than normal. There were several huge colonies of sponges with all sorts of crabs, more squat lobsters and fish everywhere. I hadn't seen more than a couple isolated sponge lobes before, so this was a pretty special moment for me. They were absolutely beautiful :angelblue: The rest of the dive featured more of the usual Howe Sound critters and was incredibly pleasant. Another successful trip in the books!

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Tom Nic
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Re: December in Howe Sound

Post by Tom Nic »

Great shots and a lovely dive! Thanks for telling the story here...
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YellowEye
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Re: December in Howe Sound

Post by YellowEye »

Very cool!

I still need to go up there and dive the Sea Dragon. Was photographer Steve T on board? He is a friend of ours known to go on that boat a lot!
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Gdog
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Re: December in Howe Sound

Post by Gdog »

Great report, great shots! Thank you for sharing
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ScubaJess
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Re: December in Howe Sound

Post by ScubaJess »

Nice report! Awesome squat lobster snap!!!
I hope we can dive with you at keystone soon :)
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Sharkb8
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Re: December in Howe Sound

Post by Sharkb8 »

ScubaJess wrote:Nice report! Awesome squat lobster snap!!!
I hope we can dive with you at keystone soon :)
Keystone has some great January tides! I do want to see some Lumpies at Redondo also.
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YellowEye
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Re: December in Howe Sound

Post by YellowEye »

Sharkb8 wrote:
ScubaJess wrote:Nice report! Awesome squat lobster snap!!!
I hope we can dive with you at keystone soon :)
Keystone has some great January tides! I do want to see some Lumpies at Redondo also.
C'mon down soon if you want to see lumpies at Redondo... they're starting to thin out a bit

We will eye Jan 5 and Jan 19 weekend for Keystone...
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