Filed under: British Columbia, Seattle, scuba | Tags: british columbia, canada, ferry, HB Church, HMCS MCKenzie, I Drink for a Reason, Nayak, Porteau Cove, victoria, victoria island, wreck diving, wrecvk certification
For the first time this trip I’m actually getting really nervous at the thought of my first penetration dive. Until this point I’d been excited to actually dive into a wreck, but the actual prospect of doing it is becoming more and more unnerving. I’m not going where no one has gone before, and I’m going with some highly trained people, but it something that’s beyond my comfort zone and up until recently, beyond my training. It’s a good nervous—a growth nervous—but that doesn’t stop pulse from fluttering a little from the moment I wake up at the campsite.
It’s cold; far colder than yesterday morning, and my body knows it. I threw on every layer I had last night while I slept in my sleeping bag, but the ground still sucked the heat from my body through my sleeping mat and the air in the tent never warmed up. On top of that, everything is soaked again, and I, with a newly-sore throat, pack up my tent with stinging fingers and join the others for breakfast.
It’s a similar breakfast to yesterday, which is again chock full of wonderful pancakes, huge sausages, and blissfully warm coffee. Before long we are heading out to the marina where we will meet up with the boat and prepare to tackle the G.B Church and the H.M.C.S. McKenzie.
Filed under: British Columbia, Seattle, scuba, travel | Tags: victoria, british columbia, canada, wreck diving, I Drink for a Reason, HMCS Mackenzie, Nakaya, I beams, buddy system, penetration reel, penetration, silt-out, hogarthian, backplate system, Cadbury, commonwealth nation, EZ-Cheese, Queen Elizabeth, Hersey, Hershey Chocolate
Morning comes early and in the form of raindrops on my head. Snapping upward in my tent I manage to crack my forehead on the gear bag I had hanging full of my electronics from the night before. The good news is that it’s not really raining, but the bad news is that the entire tent—inside and out—is completely soaked. This is what happens when you camp next to the ocean.
This is Day #1 of my Wreck Diving Certification; for everyone else it’s Day #2, but since I wasn’t able to take Friday off, I’ll be playing catch up. And my tardiness isn’t for lack of trying; I drove like a madman form Seattle directly after work, but being that heading up to British Columbia for the weekend isn’t the most original idea for a Seattleite, I had a great number of traveling companions. I had crossed the border sometime around 10 and made it to the campsite around 11pm, somewhat shaken up.
I’ve always had a bit of a lead foot when it comes to driving. When I’m going the speed limit, I think of how much faster I’ll get there if I bump up the mph by 5. How about 10? 15? By exactly how much does one have to speed to be considered “reckless”, and how much jailtime is that likely to get me really? This is my thought process, so after crossing the border I decided that, in the interest of diplomacy and not being thrown onto the back of a Mountie’s horse in handcuffs, I’d obey the speed limit. And for the first time on this journey I am alone in this.
I might as well have been standing still. People blow by me, and being like any reasonable person driving in the dark on an unfamiliar road in a country other than his own, I get competitive. I can match that. So I double down, which becomes more literal as the driving continues. Before long I am blasting through rockfall areas with roads that curve and wind like a luxury car commercial while trying to simultaneously keep pace with the other cars and not rocket off the road into a rock face. The speed limit is 60km/h. We are easily doing 120. If nothing else, the adrenaline of this rally-race is keeping me awake.
