Diving with Sea Lions at Hornby Island

I recently had the good fortune to revisit one of my favorite dive locations, Hornby Island Dive Resort.  The last time was nearly 5 years ago, so it was about time to revisit.

To get to Hornby Island you drive north to the Canadian border at Blaine, then go to the ferry to Nanaimo. Some folks head up to Horeshoe Bay to get the ferry but there's a better option on a slower but more scenic boat from Tswwassen to Nanaimo.   From Nanaimo you drive about 90 minutes north to the ferry to Denman Island.  Drive the length of Denman to the ferry to Hornby.

The Hornby Island Dive Resort is a family business now in its second generation of owners.  Rob and Amanda have run the business for a number of years since Rob took over from his father.  There are some good reasons why this is one of the best dive locations around.  The viz is incredible (60 feet on our visit).  In the summertime one has a good chance of seeing six gill sharks, in the winter and early spring however Steller Sea Lions are the main attraction.



The Sea Lions congregate in this area to feed on herring.  The main colony is on a large flat rock just a couple of minutes from the dive resort.



Rob advised us on how to deal with Sea Lions.  First, don't get shallower than 20 feet, otherwise they'll think you're a predator.  The ones that come down to check you out will be juveniles that are curious about you.  They will use their mouths to 'check you out' by tugging on you and your camera gear.  And keep your body motions in control as flailing around just gets them more excited.

Even these instructions didn't prepare me for the frenzy that followed.  At first there wasn't much action, then we were assaulted in a number of waves.   They proved to be difficult subject at first, as they flew at us from all sides.  A favorite game was grabbing hold of a dive hood and tugging.  Most annoying.



But after I got dizzy from spinning around with the camera I decide to lay low for a bit.  That's when the Sea Lions decided to come down and check out my lens port.  They could see their reflections in the curved dome port!  So I was able to get some pretty good shots of them looking into the lens.



Lots of fun, for sure!  As divers we're used to animals fleeing our presence.  What makes this experience so fascinating is that these animals are so intelligent they come flocking to check you out.  

For the underwater photos here I used a Nikon D80 with a 10-17mm fisheye lens and two Ikelight strobes.

Altitude Diving at Clear Lake, Oregon

This past weekend I traveled south to Oregon to visit Clear Lake on the MacKenzie River.  I'd read about this location and even visited it briefly a few years ago.  So when the opportunity to do a trip to the lake was offered by Olympia UWS I decided to go for it.



Clear Lake is a bit over 3000 feet in elevation.  It forms the headwaters of the McKenzie River and is fed by natural springs of snowmelt.  The lake was formed by a volcanic eruption 3,000 years ago and has upright trees perfectly preserved from when the lake was initially created.  The bottom is composed of mostly a fine ash sediment, with some modest rock walls at the southern end.



At 43 degrees you need to be sure to have a drysuit with your warmest undergarments and drygloves if possible.  Even so, my fingers complained after about 20 minutes and our longest dive was only 40 minutes.

We started off with a couple of dives from the boat ramp at the south end.  At this location there's a wall of volcanic rock that extends down about 30 feet or so, with ash below going down to the bottom at nearly 200 feet.  (We only ventured as far as 70 feet).




There's not a lot of life to see in this cold water but we did run into a number of medium sized Brook Trout, mostly in patches of moss.



I had expected to see an occasional trout free swimming, potentially making them difficult to photograph. To my surprise they were for the most part sleeping on the bottom, to the extent that I could get as close as I wanted without their taking flight.  (Perhaps their trout-brain simply had no concept that a diver with a camera posed a threat of any kind).




These trout are planted by Oregon Fish and Wildlife for recreational fishing and so aren't native.  Its hard to see how these fish might be able to survive to reproduce in this cold water.  Because of the fishing activity just about every snag or rock is going to have a collection of fishing line and gear.  We even found two poles complete with fishing gear and working reels on our first dive of the day.



The highlight of the trip was the night dive from the shores of the resort at the north end, timed to a full moon.  After negotiating the somewhat rocky entry we turned off our lights to swim in the darkness.  At first, the descent was disorienting as the bottom appeared to be in motion.  Then I realized that I was looking at the surface ripples in moonlight reflected on the bottom.  As we swam along in the dark we could see ghostlike dead trees in an eerie moonscape of white, lit only by the lunar glow.  I had my camera with me but realized that no photograph could do this scene justice.

All in all, a fun introduction to altitude diving in a lake renowned for its visibility.  Worth the drive for a fun weekend away from the usual haunts.

Diving at Keystone Jetty

Sunday I went with my friends Andy and Mark to Keystone Jetty on Whidbey Island for a couple of dives.
There were over 20 cars filled with divers already there, making for quite a scene!  This is a high current area, so when slack occurs on a weekend afternoon you'll be likely to have plenty of company.

quite a bit of equipment on display.  Everything from beginner setups to doubles and rebreathers.

It was a good day for finding Giant Pacific Octopus, we found four over the course of two dives.  Our first  GPO was rightout in the open right underneath the piers.

Lots of Longhorn Nudibranchs at the jetty,  everywhere you looked there was a Hermissenda crassicornis.  

One of my favorite sculpins is the Scalyhead Sculpin.  The coloration on this one suggests that its a male protecting his nest.

We also found a juvenile Puget Sound King Crab, just starting to show some adult coloration.  When I looked at the photos at home I saw that there was a crack in his shell... looks like the beginning of a molt, where the crab breaks out of an old shell so that it can grow a new, larger one.

The underwater photos were taken with my Nikon D80 and the Nikon 60mm micro lens,  Ikelite housing with a flat port and two Ikelite strobes.  I took the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye to try some wide angle closeups, but figured the so-so visibility didn't justify its use.

Palouse HDR

I never quite know what to do about HDR--- is it something worth doing or is it a solution that doesn't really meet the problem.  This is a tree near Steptoe Butte in the Palouse of eastern Washington state.