"THE WHITE LADY". " THE VALLEY OF THE WHITE SPONGES". Whispered with reverence and awe; and whispered in capital letters; even during the heady. rapacious days in the late 50s and early 60s, when all we were interested in was gathering as much as we could from the ocean. A place where the sponges are so large that a diver can seat himself inside of one. I know this to be true; I have sat in one.
I had been to the lady several times previously. It was always a magical dive. The sea life around McCurdy Point [where the WHITE LADY is] is always diverse and prolific. This is the area where we used to go and wrestle octopus for fun, spear fish, gather abalone and scallops,scrounge for fishing tackle,and sightsee. But the LADY; well, she was always off limits to the diving fraternity of the day for anything other than looking. And always, she inspired and fascinated us. Most every dive was made in the daylight since it was a comparatively deep dive. The valley started out at about 100 feet and went down to around 160 feet.
This was in the days that diving was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of hobby. Masks were any colour you wanted, as long as it was black, tank pressure gauges were unheard of [we used a J valve for our reserve], depth gauges were the old capillary type and decompression tables were in your head. Computors were a generation or two in the future, but in spite of all that, I only remember one person coming down with the bends.He was a commercial diver who should have know better. Anyway, he was taking to the chamber in Esquimalt and had no problems after that.
On this particular dive, my partner and I decided that a night dive on THE LADY would be a great new experience. And so it was, on a chilly October evening, we arrived at the marker. October may sound a little wrong for a dive but this was the time that the visibility was the best. In the summer months, the algal bloom is such that your visibility drops to 4-6 feet. Diving in that, at night, is like driving in a snowstorm. And when you turn on your dive light,well, picture driving through a snowstorm with your high beams on. So, at 9:00 o'clock, we get there and suit up.. When we dropped the anchor, we could follow it down due to the phosphorescence in the ocean. It was a pretty spectacular sight.
Bob dropped over first, and then I followed. It is difficult the describe the feeling and images of the exhaust bubbles rising to the surface, disturbing the dinoflagellates, and releasing the phosphorescence. It was like the bubbles were dancing their way to the surface. With the dive lights off,we could follow each others progress easily. Occasionally, we would see a brief flash off in the distance; a fish swimming by we supposed. On the bottom, we paused to get our bearings, and descended a little further to the valley. Once there, we took time to paint in the water with our hands and arms, watch the bubbles rise, and then explore the sponges. Bob crawled in one sponge and with the phosphorescence around him and the sponge, it looked almost surreal; A moving painting. I do not think that we had the lights on for more than a couple on minutes.
All too soon, we had to surface. In rising, we saw a few more flashes in the distance and we turned on the lights. A few dogfish, maybe a hundred or so, had gathered to look at us. We rose, back to back, keeping an eye out. just to be certain. No problems arose though and we had another wonderful experience to live and remember for our lives.
Thanks for coming along
Sunny skies, clear water, calm seas
M
I had been to the lady several times previously. It was always a magical dive. The sea life around McCurdy Point [where the WHITE LADY is] is always diverse and prolific. This is the area where we used to go and wrestle octopus for fun, spear fish, gather abalone and scallops,scrounge for fishing tackle,and sightsee. But the LADY; well, she was always off limits to the diving fraternity of the day for anything other than looking. And always, she inspired and fascinated us. Most every dive was made in the daylight since it was a comparatively deep dive. The valley started out at about 100 feet and went down to around 160 feet.
This was in the days that diving was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of hobby. Masks were any colour you wanted, as long as it was black, tank pressure gauges were unheard of [we used a J valve for our reserve], depth gauges were the old capillary type and decompression tables were in your head. Computors were a generation or two in the future, but in spite of all that, I only remember one person coming down with the bends.He was a commercial diver who should have know better. Anyway, he was taking to the chamber in Esquimalt and had no problems after that.
On this particular dive, my partner and I decided that a night dive on THE LADY would be a great new experience. And so it was, on a chilly October evening, we arrived at the marker. October may sound a little wrong for a dive but this was the time that the visibility was the best. In the summer months, the algal bloom is such that your visibility drops to 4-6 feet. Diving in that, at night, is like driving in a snowstorm. And when you turn on your dive light,well, picture driving through a snowstorm with your high beams on. So, at 9:00 o'clock, we get there and suit up.. When we dropped the anchor, we could follow it down due to the phosphorescence in the ocean. It was a pretty spectacular sight.
Bob dropped over first, and then I followed. It is difficult the describe the feeling and images of the exhaust bubbles rising to the surface, disturbing the dinoflagellates, and releasing the phosphorescence. It was like the bubbles were dancing their way to the surface. With the dive lights off,we could follow each others progress easily. Occasionally, we would see a brief flash off in the distance; a fish swimming by we supposed. On the bottom, we paused to get our bearings, and descended a little further to the valley. Once there, we took time to paint in the water with our hands and arms, watch the bubbles rise, and then explore the sponges. Bob crawled in one sponge and with the phosphorescence around him and the sponge, it looked almost surreal; A moving painting. I do not think that we had the lights on for more than a couple on minutes.
All too soon, we had to surface. In rising, we saw a few more flashes in the distance and we turned on the lights. A few dogfish, maybe a hundred or so, had gathered to look at us. We rose, back to back, keeping an eye out. just to be certain. No problems arose though and we had another wonderful experience to live and remember for our lives.
Thanks for coming along
Sunny skies, clear water, calm seas
M
homework day today.
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