A Land Down Under

A bunch of years ago I went scuba diving in Comox, British Columbia at a place called Singing Sands. It's a shore dive that leads to a concrete-hulled sailboat about 75 feet below the surface at high tide that is teeming with life, including several Giant Pacific Octopuses.

Here's the scene. We hired a Dive Master named Amber to take us to the wreck, but my dive buddy couldn't equalize on their first attempt, so Amber and I went down alone.

Let me back up a second.

Allow me to paint a clearer picture. On the shore were several fishermen casting their lines into the Pacific, and as Amber and I trudged our gear to the water, dive flag in tow, they were yelling at us, "Yer gonna scare the fish, ye bastards! Fakin' divers always ruinin' this spot."

Undaunted, we geared up, checked each other over, and eased into the water, paddling to a place where we could float and not touch the bottom before starting our dive. Giving the sign to dive, we released the air in our BCDs and sunk below the surface.

"Yer fakin' fish-scarin-divin-fartmongering-fisssshhhh …" blub, blub, blub.

The visibility was incredible below the surface as we followed the shore down towards the wreck, and there were fish everywhere. They didn't even give us a second glance. Then, at about 15 or 20 feet, I passed a couple of Ling Cod. I had never met a Ling Cod before. Ever. I was completely unaware of their existence until the moment I met one face-to-face. They are huge and terrifying at about five feet long and filled with sharp teeth; they also didn't give one rip about me swimming past them. If anything, they looked curious but had other things on their mind, probably how to catch a fisherman.

The deeper we got, the more life surrounded us; there were cloud anemones everywhere, eels slithering in and out of rocks, Ling Cod hovering around making plans, and off in the distance, we could see Rock Cod doing Rock Cod things.

We reached the bottom where the wreck was, emptied our BCDs, knelt on the ocean floor facing the wreck, and turned on our flashlights. It wasn't dark down there, but Amber wanted to show me the octopus dens. Fumbling with the flashlight, I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings—everything happens in slow motion 75 feet below the surface—when I clicked it on and looked around, we were surrounded entirely by Rock Cod.

There were five of them, and if I had to guess, they were close to two feet long and were curious about what we were doing; they would float within a couple of inches of us, inspect our equipment, float back, look at each other, and then float off and do Rock Cod things. It was surreal.

Flashlights on, Amber pointed hers towards the wreck and three piles of crab shells. Her flashlight played across the ship's hull down where the crab shells were, and a few feet under the boat was a Giant Pacific Octopus staring out at us. It was huge and also curious.

The largest sucker was about the size of my fist.

The octopus made its way out of its den to see what was going on, tidied up a bit, gave us a thumbs-up and then eased back under the ship. But, unfortunately, diving at 75 feet means your air doesn't last very long and before we knew it, it was time to head back to the surface.

Saying goodbye to our octopus friend, Rock Cod buddies, Ling Cod dudes, and eel chappies, we headed up to do our decompression stop at 15 feet. To prevent the 'bends,' we'd need to hover at 15 feet for five minutes or more to release the build-up of nitrogen. Floating there, Amber got my attention and pointed to her eyes, then to the sky, and rolled onto her back. I followed her lead and rolled onto my back; hovering there, 15 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, we watched the sunset.

I've had many more adventures with octopuses and other sea life while diving, but I don't know if I've ever seen anything more beautiful than that sunset.

When we reached the shore, we asked the fishermen if they had any luck. "No, ferfaksakes, ye scared all dem fish. Maybe now we'll get some. Stupid divers ruinin' our spot."

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COMMENTS FROM ASTUTE READERS

"You painted a picture I could see clearly! Thanks for sharing." — Laura