Kerry's Dive #536 NUMBER

Our first dive was at a sight that was on my life list of things to see -- GORGONIAN CORALS. For those of you who think cold water does not have corals you are dead wrong infact you can find soft corals in the Arctic Ocean. British Columbia has a reasonable selection of soft and gorgonian corals and even a few hard ones (just not the reef building kind). Any way enough of a biodiversity lesson on with the diving.

One thing about BIG gorgonians in B.C. waters, they are deep. Infact most are well below sport diving depths. In Agememnon Channel however they are not THAT far below sport diving depths.

We basically went straight down not wanting to waste time, we did however on the way encounter very large cloud sponges another great B.C. diving sight. these cloud sponges were actually the biggest I have ever seen. We also found a smaller species of gorgonianp sammorgia teres which is a small red species that grows to about a foot high. Starting at 150 feet we found the ones we were looking for paragorgia pacifica which are large (about 4 feet here) and bright orange. The sight of them was more than worth the effort and yes added risk of the depth. I would definately return to see these again. The sight of them also left me woondering how big they would be at 200 feet!!! maybe tech diving would interest me after all.

Bottom time on this dive was all too short and soon we hd to go back and start our safty stop (a good long one!). Besides the great gorgonians and cloud sponge we also saw lots of big boot sponge and many feather stars. I'd go back here in a second.