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"We were back at Captain Nemos, near The Sisters, for further explorations of the canyon that the boys found there on the last dive. It was a blustery trip up from Pirates Bay, with 20kn NW winds, but Y knot handles this sort of stuff easily. I only got splashed in the face twice, and that was only because I failed to duck quickly enough.

We have a GPS mark in the depth sounder, so we easily found the spot we were looking for. James dropped a shot line onto it, and the boys started preparing to dive. As they both have rebreathers, this takes longer than one would normally expect.
Also, as they both dive the same type of rebreather, and dive similiar dive profiles, we decided that they would dive as a team, whilst I drove the boat. I would then do my dive solo.

We also deployed another buoy, with short line, as a deco station for them. This was attached to the shot buoy at the start of the dive, and their plan was to release it as they arrived back at the shot, and drift whilst they did their 30 minutes deco.

This all worked well, and I picked them up at the end of their dive, several hundred metres from the shot line.

They reported that the shot was anchored somewhere near the canyon we were looking for, but that they had had to do a big swim around in an arc before they found it. I received somewhat complicated, and it has to be said vague, directions on how to find the canyon from the end of the shot.

I didn't really think I would find it, to be honest.

So, now it was my turn. I had two, sidemounted, 10.5 litre tanks plus a 100% o2 deco bottle, so I was well equiped for a solo dive down to 40m. I was dropped near the shot, and started towards it. However I quickly discovered a problem with my tank attachment. I went back to the boat and handed in the tank for the boys to fix. Once I had it on again I started for the buoy. Unfortunatley, with a stiff wind, we were now about 50m away. Oh well, a bit of a surface swim was in order. I started swimming, and about 10m from the buoy decided that was good enough, and dropped down.

As the bottom came into view I could see shadowy walls looming up ahead to either side of me, and clear water straight ahead. I was lined up perfectly with the start of the canyon. I would love to claim awesome skill for this, but it was just dumb luck really.

I swam through, and then back again, and finally slowly rose up in the middle, looking at the stunning Sea whips, Zoanthids and other corals on the walls. Visibility in the canyon was good, at about 15-20m. It is a beautiful dive site.

The canyon is only about 2m wide, vertical walled and 20m deep, and about 20m long (I may be a bit off with the length).

As I came out the top the visibility reduced to about 10m. I swam a few metres, and found the shot line! The boys had been about 3m away from it, but swam in a huge arc around in the wrong direction. They found that very funny when I reported back at the end of my dive.

When I got to the surface I found that the wind had veered to the South, at about 10knots, and the sea was quite sloppy. James and Eric had decided to do a quick second dive and put an SMB up actually inside the canyon, so I could mark the exact location of the end. So they jumped straight back in (as fast as one can jump with a rebreather) whilst I did boat duty again.

GPS marking accomplished, divers and shot retrieved, and we headed for home in light Southerly winds and confused seas.

We were back at the boat ramp by 2:30pm.

Even though I only did one dive for the day, given the conditions, it was a corker. Really, really good. I will be back there.

And it was a great day out, as usual, with James and Eric.

"
By Janine McKinnon

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