The Seach for Six Gilled Sharks

About a month ago I had just finished walking around Stanley park after checking out the vancouver aquarium when I made my way up Albernia St and came across a little dive shop called Deeper Aquatics. I spoke to Kasuki the japanese diver working there and he told me about this up an coming dive trip to Hornby Island. I took a broucher home and a week later I came in and put a deposit down.

6 weeks later......

It's 11 o'clock on Friday the 28th of July, after chowing down a burritto from steamrollers (which was pretty good but gave me gas) I rock into deeper aquatics and meet the nine other divers I am going with.

Dylan - operator and owner of deeper aquatics, his clame to fame is that he was on Blind Date, a tv show where you go on a blind date. The girl and him broke the record for alcohol consumption. "Go on my Son"

Lu Lu - Dylans girlfriend and instant buddy of mine, we had our own hand shake with in five minutes of meeting each other. "HI FIVE!"

Jen - Montreal girl studying to be a parramedic, great for a chat and full of great stories of her crazy experiences around the world, difinately a good choise to go camping with.

Jeremy - English beer lover and a wiz with computer, top lad with a witty sence of humor and a great 'Stuy' impression. "Burger and Beer anyone"

Mohamad - Came from Isreal about 6 years ago and told me a few stories that kind of shook me to the bone, like seeing rockets fly over his head into surrounding neighbourhoods. "Fuck.............Oh Fuck"

Those are just a few of the people I got along with, everyone else were great. When you travel to Nanimo you need to go to West Vancouver and hop on a ferry at Horseshoe Bay, so after loading up the budget van that Dylan rented for the trip we made our way to BC Ferries and drove strait onto the boat. The trip takes about an hour and a half, Vancouver Island is only 20 Kms off the mainland however the boat is very slow. Fortunately Jeremy brought his laptop on the trip and we watched the cult classic Human Traffic. So for the rest of the trip we were pulling quotes from the movie that seemed to be more funny the more we did it. Well to us anyway.

Hit the port of Nanimo, bust through the town and head north to Fanny Bay (ha ha ha ....... fanny), pick up some booze and catch another ferry to Dennman Island, it's a beautiful island that reminded me of the island that is described in A Snow falling on Cedars. Pines grew to the waters edge, lots of little stores by the side of the road and heaps of hippies. So many hippies, so so so many hippies. Eventually we get to the opposite side of the mountain and catch yet another ferry to Hornby Island, the finnal destination.

Hornby Island is georgous, lots of little beaches and more hippies. We eventually get to the Hornby Island Dive charters and stretch our legs, 8 hours later. One of the best things about the weekend was the food, oh how I loved the food, Mia, your the bomb girl. We honestly got our luggage to our rooms and went strait to the dining room with a sheppards pie, salad and other great food ready to devour. After letting the food digest of twenty minutes we unpacked all of the dive gear and got ready to for our first dive, a night dive just next to the jetty where alot of local boats are moured, including our charter boat. Now seeing that I haven't dived for the last couple of years it definately was a sure way to get me back up to speed and fast.

Kitted up we make our entry, once every one were in we started to descend, unfortunately i didn't have enough weight on me so Dylan had to whack about another 2 more pounds in my dive pocket, perfect. We descended to the top of a ledge at about 20 feet and headed out on a 210* vector and came to a 40 foot drop. We descended down and came apon a sea bed of seaferns, lots of crabs and bio allumanescent jelly fish that put on some pretty cool fireworks. There were also alot of crabs that I had lots of fun annoying as well as an array of different fish. After about 30 minutes of bottom time we accended and came out at around 10:40pm. Headed up to the house, stripped off, had a few beers and crashed for the night.

Once awake I got to know Dan and Rob, the two guys from the sunshine coast dive company, bloody top blokes and really funny. I probably hung out with these guys the most as well as Lu Lu and Jeremy. We were all pretty keen to have a few drinks after diving as well which made the conversations a little bit more interesting. So any way, it's saturday morning and we have planned three dives for this day, hopefully to spot some sharks as well. We head down to the breakfast spread and hoe down some delicious bacon and eggs that Mia prepared along with about 6 cups of coffee to wash it all down. Then I head to my room, grag the old camera and a towel and go down stairs to get ready for the dive.

After I slipped into my wet suit which I had little faith would keep my warm for a dive down to 100ft, I helped load all the gear onto the dive boat and went down and just chilled on the boat. It was about 8:30 and the little bay was beautiful with glassy water that had light shimering off in all angles. Rob cranked the twin 200 horse power engines and we buzzed away though the channel for about fifteen minutes to a little rocky seal colany to a dive spot called the floral islet. We all started to gear up while Rob gave us a run down on the dive we were about to do, making a note that the sharks will only be seen if we were lucky and to just enjoy the dive anyway. I was buddied up with Peter and Jeremy, both were fairly new to diving however they had alot more recent dives than me at this stage so I was happy to tag along with these guys. I finished wacking on my bcd and put my fins on. Checked my tank pressure and a few minutes later I was pleasantly surprised how warm the water actually was. Jerry, Pete and I gave each other the signal and down we went.

We bottomed out on a shelf at about 60 ft then made our way north to the large wall that decended down to about 200ft. It was there that we dropped off and slowly etched our way to about 80 ft. After checking that everything was working properly and that we were comfortable at this depth we turned our attension the vast array of enamels and sea life buzzing around us, constantly on the look out for a 20ft sixgilled shark to glyde past us at any moment. It's a daughting feeling being 100ft under water no matter how many buddies and experiences divers there are around you. But the main thing is to stay calm and relaxed, the last thing you want is to be over anxcious and start chewing though your air supply and cut your dive nearly in half. About 20 minutes into the dive I realised I was spending a little to much time enjoying the crab life on the walls at about 100ft and realised that over half my tank seemed to dissapear momentarily which made me opt to accent to about 60 ft. Much better, ears felt a little less pressure and to make things a whole lot better there was a little seal to greet me from a nearby seal colany. That made my dive, he just popped out of the darkness and swirved in front of me like I was on coming traffic, then he was gone. At first I though he was a shark, which made me freeze, suspended with only a tiny little torch to defend my self. At that stage my air was at about 700 psi, so I swam over to pete and jerry and told them I was going up, they had a little bit of air left and opted to stay down for another five or ten minutes. I accended to about 20ft, hung around there for about 4 minutes and made my way to the surface where I was greeted by a large boat to pick me up.

As we headed back I could help but notice how much the swell had picked up, the light wind from the time we headed out had a few extra knots and caused the ocean to stir a little, however, it wasn't enough to effect our dive plans at this point in time. Everyone was a little dissapointed with the dive, especially Dylan, though he didn't show it you could tell by how little he was saying on the wasy back. Don't get me wrong, the dive was great it's just that not one person saw any sharks and I was the only one that caught a glipse of the seal. To tell you the truth I was just happy I could still feel the rest of my body, the wetty kept me pretty warm and I was just greatful for that.

Well after unloading our gear we headed up to get a bight to eat. This is where my love for Mia started to really develop, after the shapperds pie the night before I started getting interested but now with a spead of thia chicken wraps and pumpkin soup plus the salads I was back in heaven. I could of just sat there eating all day, fuck the diving, I want more lunch. I finish my third wrap, and head up stairs to brush my teeth. Dylan's on the couch watching a kite boarding video of the guys getting barrels on there kite boards in 12 - 15ft waves. I was very impressed. That re-inspires me to get back in the water and with in 30 minutes we were back to the boat, loading up and getting on out way to our next dive spot.

By this stage the swell had picked up a little more so we opted to head to a islet that was a little more protected from the swell. Toby islet was in a perfect positions away form the swell which reminded me that Rob knew this island like the back of his hand, I also felt alot more confidnt in his abilities and knowledge of the area. At this dive sight there is a huge wall that mianders out to become a flatter shelf as you head east. This was problaly my favourite dive on the whole trip, mainly because of all the floura that was perched on the wall. There were occy's and dogfish here and there and alot of little rock fish that seemed spell bound when my light hit them. Even though it was only a back up. I was really getting my water legs back by this stage and felt very comfortable at 100ft. The only thing I should not of done though, was try to see everything. In doing so you miss all of the finer details that seperate your observation to a seeing something in nature to actually unerstanding it's position in that environment. Even little things like the coulorful see slugs, I learnt back on the surface that the red one's eat the white ones, something that I would of only really noticed if I took my time. Also when I came up to the surface I realised that I had a growing head ache that persisted the entire day and even to the third dive later in the evening.  This was probably caused by my over excertion while still trying to conserve my airsupply.

We head back to the jetty which only takes about a five minute ride on the boat and we're home for a few hours to chill out and do our own thing for a little while. Dylan, Lu Lu, Rob, Dan, Mohomad and my self decide to take the van and go for a little exploration around the island. We heard about this beach that had beautiful white sand and a great view of Vancouver Island in the background. The beach is part of Tribune Bay, it's about 1km in length and has rocky points on either side covered with cedar trees. Lu lu and I got our feet wet and I took a few photo's, including this cracker which I dubbed, "the Album Cover", that has all the guys in it doing there own thing apart from Rob, who has this Mick Jagger look to him in the center of the photo. Bloody classic. After that we head over to the beer store, which is obviously the furtherest distance away from where we are staying and pick up a few more supplies. At this stage we realise that we will just get back to have dinner at 6 if we hurry. Unfourtunately we get stuck behind a learner driver that drives all the way back to where we are staying putting us about 15 minutes late. We felt pretty bad, but even worse when we realised that Mia had cooked up some salmon that looked amazing. She does it everytime.

Now we gear up for our dawn/night dive and head to the boat. After letting the food settle for about half an hour we had to get our shit together realise that we still have some partying to do. Due to the higher wind Rob opts to take us across the channel to Denman Island to a drift dive called the Dinner Plate, interesting name I thought. I'm back with Jerry and Pete, so we gear up and head over board. As we decended I noticed a common theme to this dive spot, sea urchants, bloody heaps of them. There was alot of potencial for this dive, however, because it was my third for the day, we were all tired and pretty thirsty by this stage. I also had a bit of a head ache still and didn't have to much energy after eating half a fish. Fortnately it was a drift dive, so all I had to do was get my boyancy right and let the current do the rest. So thats what I did, I stopped at a few ledges and poked my head in a few times but over all i was just cruising. I did notice Dan and Rob and was really impressed how Dan could look like he was sitting in a lazy boy while drifting. I tried to do the same but had no luck. I met up with them under water and we hung out for a little while before giving the signal to screw this, lets get drunk. We got back to the boat, headed home and that's exactly what we did.

Every one was having a great laugh and getting to know each other on the outside benches until Rob came out and told us to take it in side. We offered him a beer but he declined, not the most sociable bloke in the world however we respected his wishes and headed in. Thats where the real fun began. First we played a bit of poker, unfortunately half the people couldn't play so the ones that could got fed up with stalling and just went all in to put them selves out of the misery of trying to explain the rules to drunk people. So I piped up if any one knew how to play circle of death, not one person had head of this little game of mine but were quickly to join in. Thank god rob was sitting next to me to re-explain the rules else i wouldn't of had any luck. However soon enough every one had drinks in hand and were playing like pro's, except Mohamad, he could never quite say fuck fast enough. We played till about 12:30, then most of the crew went to bed leaving me to look after Dan, who by this stage was in the garden giving some midnight bile fertiliser. I got him a glass of water and had a chat to Rob for a little longer. When 2 rolled around, I knew I had to hit the sack, we still had an early morning dive to do.

I woke up and thanked god that I was still young and didn't get hangover. In fact I felt fantastic and was the first one downstairs. I greeted Mia and hit up some coffee for a bit of a wake up call. I kept chatting to Mia and realized that I was the only one awake, so I went up stairs and woke the old farts up. Rob came in shortly after and told us that we were heading out to the Floura Islet again. Hoping we were going to catch some six gills this time. Fully loaded and ready to go I realised we were about to embark on our last dive, a said thought but an inevitable one. I had made so many freinds and a couple of great contacts but most importantly, I rekindled my passion for diving and the ocean. Still wet from the night before my wet suit started warming to my body temperature. In front of me sat Rob, with a vacant seat next to him,Dan had thought it beyond him to venture our of his bedroom due to the amount of alcohol he in took the night before. I took a photo to remind him the next time I saw him.

I make that familiar splash i'm used to now, and then it stuck me, the water was fealling alot colder than I anticipated. Pete and Jerry jump in and soon we're on our way down, at the bottom we take our time getting to the wall, partly due to Pete's navigation skill, however, i knew the direction and signal for them to follow me. Soon we see the farmiliar 200+ft drop and down we go. As we hit about 80ft we opt to level out and slowly explore the wall. At this point i'm freezing, the water is about 10-12 celcius and I start to feel it. I try to concerntrate on whats around me and i soon notice a huge shimmering school of bait fish swimming about 40ft above me, quite the spectactle. The shear size reminds me that we are looking for sharks the grow to an averag of six meters or more so my fucus soon shifts to the dark depths below me. At any moment I feel like a shark is going to boom out from underneath me but as the time disipates along with my air supply the notion of coming face to face with a prehistoric behemith is slowly dwindling away. The cold was also getting the better of me and I soon realise that I am getting very uncomfortable. I accend and hit 40 feet which is when I have this wierd sensation that I have just entered a warm bath, that makes me realize how cold I actually was.

I'm back on the boat now and I notice a curious little deal coming closer to the boat, then like a flack he darts back down to play with the other guys still down at the bottom. Mohamad and I ask Rob if we could jump off the boat, he agrees and soon enough i'm doing a front flip off the boat. My next attemp is a back flip but I spin incorrectly and land on my face. Not a pleasant feeling at all. Once everyone was back on the boat, I take a look around and take in the three islands Hornby, Dennman and Vancouver for one last time and think to my self that I really should come back in a couple of years or ten.

There isn't much else to say about the rest of the trip apart from the maccaroni cheese Mia made us for lunch. Oh, and the 8 hour trip it took us to get back to Vancouver, by missing the ferry by a hair everytime. I just couldn't believe it was at an end when we pulled into the back of Dylans dive shop. The good bye were quick but the hugs were tight as were the handshakes and everyone soon realize how good the group was and how bloody fantastic our weekend had been.