In Search of Giants
(Published in Diver Magazine, September '10)
When the invitation came to dive in British Columbia I jumped at the chance. The offer was a simple one. Travelling expenses covered from my small Channel Island, Sark, to Bowen, a slightly larger island in Howe Sound off Vancouver. In exchange I was to give two presentations to the Bowen Island Conservation Group. One on the natural history and life in general in Sark and a second, at the end of two weeks underwater photography, on the marine life I’d encountered around Bowen. The best part of the deal is that the cold, deep waters of the Canadian west coast are home to the Pacific Giant Octopus, a creature I’d long dreamt of diving with. Like millions of others I’d been transfixed by images of Victoria Stone wrapped in eight huge red tentacles in ‘Devilfish’, a natural history film on the Giant Octopus. I watched in awe as she calmly retrieved her regulator from one tentacle only to have it gently removed by another. This was a chance for a devilfish encounter of my own.
I arrived in Bowen in darkness so it wasn’t until the next morning that I realised just what a beautiful part of the world I was in. Sheer mountains and clear blue skies were reflected in the mirror calm waters of Howe Sound with pine forests clinging on all the way to the water’s edge. O
ther islands lay scattered in all directions and the peace was only disturbed by the occasional float plane whirring overhead or the throaty call of a heron. I met my dive guide for the fortnight, retired marine biology professor Dr Brian Hartwick. Not only is Brian an expert on diving in British Columbia, but he’s also spent years studying the Giant Octopus. Just as importantly on an island with no dive centre, he has plenty of diving friends with boats and access to Bowen’s single compressor. As we kitted up in warm sunshine I wondered if I’d need both layers of thermals under my dry suit and when we jumped into the water, a very pleasant 18 degrees, I thought that my wet suit would have been a better bet. Warm it may have been, but clear it wasn’t. Huge blobs of plankton and silt drifted by in the gentle current and, looking at the pea soup around me, I understood why this is called the Emerald Sea. A devilfish encounter in these conditions could perhaps be a little too exciting. Expecting better vis I’d chosen my wide angle lens for this dive and as I lifted it optimistically towards a vast lion’s mane jellyfish I thought that the camera too could have been left at home with my dry suit, hood and thick gloves. The camera failed to focus in the blizzard of bits and, dropping a little deeper, I struggled to see straight too. We’d hit a thermocline. Within a couple of metres the temperature plummeted to ten degrees and the cold stung my face. With the sudden change of temperature came a vast improvement in the visibility. 
I could see over ten metres along the wall where a horizontal band of rich purple stretched into the turquoise-green haze in either direction. Closer inspection revealed hundreds of hand-sized Purple Starfish feeding on the mussels which smothered the rock. Slightly lower down the purple starfish were replaced by thousands of enormous Sunflower Stars in every shade of red, orange, purple and pink. With up to 26 arms and growing to a metre across, these giants are the largest starfish on the planet and for anyone with a phobia of such things the scene before me would cause nightmares for years. In places the Sunflower Stars were so deeply piled that the rock beneath was totally obscured by their writhing, striped arms and plumped up bodies. As the Canadians would say, the view was awesome.
At this site the wall petered out about 15 metres down, replaced by a series of undulating ridges and piles of boulders. Foot high sea pens bloomed from the sediment and fat, spiky sea cucumbers grazed the rocks. Anemones and yet more starfish added vivid splashes of colour and in places the sea floor was a mass of delicately banded brittle stars. Some of the marine life was vaguely familiar from home but almost without exception it was much, much larger particularly the huge, pale-coloured plumose anemones which seemed to glow in the greeny half light. I was in underwater photography heaven, taking pictures as fast as my strobes would let me, when Brian gestured excitedly to a cave beneath a boulder. In front was an arc of debris, empty shells and broken up pieces of crab, a sure sign of an octopus den. Brian pointed to the back of the crevice and I peered under from a distance bracing 
myself for meeting a giant. Instead, right at the back of the cave, my torch beam revealed a small red tentacle with tiny suckers coyly shielding an equally small eye, its pupil a black, horizontal stripe. The little creature flinched in the sudden light, blanched pink and oozed out of sight. It wasn’t quite the encounter I’d hoped for but I consoled myself with the thought that even Giant Octopus have to start somewhere and this was just the first dive.
The next day in the local village hall I gave my first presentation to an audience of around two dozen pensioners, young Mums and toddlers. (I did a talk once where only two people showed up so I always think more than that is a good result!) There was some polite interest in my pictures of British marine life but plenty of questions about life in Sark including the top two, ‘What do you do in winter?’ and ‘What happens when someone has a baby?’ The comparisons between island life there and here were fascinating, especially all too familiar issues surrounding development versus conservation. I ended with the few shots of local marine life I’d taken on my first dive. They went down well which meant that the pressure was on to take a good selection of photographs for big finale at the end of the trip.
For the next two weeks I did a mixture of boat dives in Howe Sound and shore dives from Bowen. Most were on walls, often very sheer, and all involved the descent through the murky, mild surface water to the cold, clear stuff below. One of my favourites was a boat dive at Pam Rocks, a bird reserve north of Bowen where seals watched us as we kitted up. We didn’t see any underwater, although they were almost certainly watching us, but the highlight of the dive was coming face to face with an enormous Lingcod. A valuable commercial fish, the under-slung jaw and general don’t-mess-with-me demeanour of this three foot long beastie reminded me of a pike. There were plenty of other fish to see on every dive. British Columbia is home to an endless variety of Sculpins including the bizarre, bulbous-headed Buffalo Sculpin which sits motionless on the seabed making an easy, but not beautiful, subject for an underwater photographer. There were also many different Greenlings, the loveliest of which was the elaborately striped and tasselled Painted Greenling. Most boulders were guarded by a territorial Copper Rockfish on top and a battalion of bright yellow Blackeye Gobies underneath. My absolute favourite though was also the smallest, the Grunt Sculpin. It’s known as a Pigfish, the prefect name for a creature bearing a remarkably porky-looking snout. Propped up on its large front fins and posing beautifully for the camera, I lost my heart to the Pigfish, all three inches of it.
When the day came for my talk on the marine life around Bowen Island I had a good selec
tion of images but, five minutes before the show was due to begin at the local school, the audience was thin on the ground. From then on though more and more people trickled in until around fifty crammed the classroom. I’ve never spoken to such an interested and appreciative audience nor heard the word ‘awesome’ so many times. Giving the talks gave my trip a extra sense of purpose and, at their request, I left a set of the best images with the school. Who knows, maybe they’ll inspire the divers and marine biologists of the future? Diving with locals rather than through a dive centre left me feeling that I’d learnt more about this place than anywhere I’ve dived before. The pride that Brian and his diving friends feel in their local marine life was obvious and the same as I feel for my mine at home.
And what of my hunt for the Giant Octopus? I spotted a couple of small ones out in the open and became quite adept at finding their dens. All were either empty or home to youngsters. That is, until the last dive. My buddy had found a den and side by side we crammed ourselves in the entrance. Our torch beams revealed a tangle of huge red tentacles, a pulsing siphon and an eye which looked slowly from one of us to the other. Not only was the octopus close but the suckers on its tentacles were about two inches in diameter, an alarming indication that this was no baby. We backed out, very quickly and very carefully, and I realised that I may have gone to British Columbia in search of giants but I was just as happy to find Pigfish.
More information
Although there’s no dive centre on Bowen Island there are several dive operators based in Vancouver who run day boats and live-aboards in Howe Sound. 24 miles north of Vancouver at Porteau Cove Marine Park there’s a whole bay dedicated to shore divers with a mixture of deliberately sunk wrecks and other artificial reef structures.
I flew to Vancouver with Thomas Cook Airlines who offer an extra 10kg of baggage allowance for diving equipment for £60 return long haul in addition to their standard fee for the usual 20kg of hold luggage. (Print out the confirmation note if you buy the extra allowance online as it may not show on your booking when you check in.)