Belcarra Park Shore Dive 2012
Copied from Stuart's Forum entry: So Dale, Kerry, Paul, Doug, Mark, Lindsay, and myself met at Belcarra park at 10 on Sunday morning to do a couple of dives. We promptly all got separated on descent but maintained our buddy teams. Doug and I immediately found 3 large white lined dirona nudibranchs on some kelp on the first rocks of the reef. We saw some even larger species later on in the dive. We just kept meandering from rock to rock and found a really good variety of life. There were other orange(golden dirona) nudibranchs with white tips, a few leopard dorid nudibranchs, lots of large dungeness and red rock crabs and lots of shrimp. The nudibranchs were very large compared to the same species found elsewhere in our area. You do need to keep your knees bent up so not to stir up the very silty bottom with fin kicks. After about an hour we surfaced about 50 yards from the entry point. Nice long relaxing dive. This was Doug's first ocean dive in about a year and did great on buoancy and air consumption.
After an hour or so we headed back in for dive 2. Lindsay ( Kerry's guest) brought a bbq and hot dogs for our surface interval and Dale brewed up some hot chocolate for everyone. Nice to have something warm to eat and drink between dives. Dog and I again buddied up for dive 2 and we found what looked like some kind of side by side pipeling that sloped down a rocky rubble field. Again lots of nudibranchs, crab and tons of large shrimp. Didn't see too many fish here but lots of other interesting stuff. We followed the pipeling thingy to about 60 feet then turned around and headed back up teh slope and back in the direction of the beach. This time after we surfaced from 15 feet to about the same distance from the beach we went back down and dived back to the beach. Found a nice little light doing that. 2 good dives about an hour each.
After an hour or so we headed back in for dive 2. Lindsay ( Kerry's guest) brought a bbq and hot dogs for our surface interval and Dale brewed up some hot chocolate for everyone. Nice to have something warm to eat and drink between dives. Dog and I again buddied up for dive 2 and we found what looked like some kind of side by side pipeling that sloped down a rocky rubble field. Again lots of nudibranchs, crab and tons of large shrimp. Didn't see too many fish here but lots of other interesting stuff. We followed the pipeling thingy to about 60 feet then turned around and headed back up teh slope and back in the direction of the beach. This time after we surfaced from 15 feet to about the same distance from the beach we went back down and dived back to the beach. Found a nice little light doing that. 2 good dives about an hour each.