The most exhilarating experience I have had while SCUBA diving came from diving with sealions at Hornby Island, BC (one of the islands between the British Columbia mainland and the Island of Vancouver).
Natural History of the Hornby Sealions
Each winter, male sealions come to feed on the plentiful herring that is gathering to spawn in the Hornby Island area. It’s their vacation, leaving the females and young in Mexico and California. The local sand stone geology of the area makes for relatively good visibility and a shallow shelf on which SCUBA divers can rest. Sealions are *much* larger than seals, and they can stand on their front limbs. Although I’ve been told that three species of sealions can be found at Hornby, I’ve only ever encountered two: the Stellar sealion (much more playful, and featured in all of the videos that I am putting on this page), and the California sealion.
A Unique Experience – Time and Time again
After my first experience, I began an annual migration to Hornby Island myself, to swim with the playful sealions of the area. It can be a little intimidating have an animal that weights one tonne barrel through water heading straight for you… But they veer off at the last second, gracefully. They nibble on your hood and fins and gloves, they imitate your behaviour underwater. At the surface, they bark at you with their fishy breath. There’s no other feeling quite like it! On my last trip, I had a concussion and broken ribs (from a skiing accident the night before), so I could not SCUBA dive. I decided to snorkel with them instead. Imagine my delight when I discovered that they were just as interactive! I highly recommend the experience to anyone interested. Keep in mind that these are wild animals – keep a healthy respect, and recognize when their playfulness may be too much for a simple human to bear. The boat is always just a short swim away…
Showing posts with label SCUBA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SCUBA. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Annie and a Sealion, Kissing
My blog is lacking pictures of late... Here's one of Annie kissing a Stellar sealion at Hornby Island, BC.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Captivated by the Underwater Realm of BC
Vous trouverez la version française de mon blog en suivant ce lien
Why British Columbia
After graduation, what kept me in B.C. was not the beautiful mountainous landscapes, the serenity of the temperate rainforests, the laid-back life style, or the delicious Vancouver asian cuisine that most people will cite you. As a (somewhat fanatical) SCUBA diver, I feel privileged to have witnessed the dazzling array of colours created by the arrangement of a multitude of critters that colonize every rock and crevice in the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest.
My First SCUBA Dive
I remember my first dive quite vividly (in the Squamish area, site of my new home, coincidently). What struck me then was how alien the life forms were. Gravity is not a factor in the development of an underwater body plan. Air and food are extracted directly from the surrounding medium, so respiration and digestion systems are radically different. I might as well have been on Mars. I remember thinking that most people, who only get the opportunity to look at the surface of the ocean, had never seen these creatures; most people didn’t even imagined that these bizarre and beautiful animals lurked mere meters away from the surface of the ocean.
I was Hooked
I felt privileged to have caught a glimpse of an unexplored part of our planet. I was hooked, and I wanted to learn more about these weird and amazing creatures. This was the launch of an 8 year quest for me, one that culminated in me authoring a chapter on marine life in a book on Stanley Park ecology.
Underwater Chemists
I’m sure you’ve often heard that one of the reasons to save the Amazonian rain forest is because it may contain some species as yet unknown to science that could hold the key to a cure for cancer. It turns out that the same is true of the marine critters that inhabit our coast. Nudibranchs (sea slugs) and sponges are quite common in our waters (see some representative snapshots I brought back from my little expeditions). Both types of organisms are expert chemists: they produce a lot of novel organic compounds that they use to repel would-be predators.
Fighting Cancer and Other Illnesses
I have a friend whose Ph.D. project involves collecting sponge and nudibranch species, grinding them down, separating the various chemical components that they produce and applying them to cancerous cells (click here to view her laboratory's website). It is her hope that one day, she will find one chemical that will inhibit the growth of cancerous cells, offering a potential treatment for this dreadful disease (everyone in my family eventually succumbs to this disease, so here’s hoping she finds something soon! :) ).
Protecting the Environment
Personally, I would advocate preserving marine habitats for the simple reason that they are beautiful to behold, but for those pragmatics out there, the cure to your future disease may soon come from the ocean. Knowing this, can anyone possibly argue that our oceans are not worth preserving?
Why British Columbia
After graduation, what kept me in B.C. was not the beautiful mountainous landscapes, the serenity of the temperate rainforests, the laid-back life style, or the delicious Vancouver asian cuisine that most people will cite you. As a (somewhat fanatical) SCUBA diver, I feel privileged to have witnessed the dazzling array of colours created by the arrangement of a multitude of critters that colonize every rock and crevice in the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest. My First SCUBA Dive
I remember my first dive quite vividly (in the Squamish area, site of my new home, coincidently). What struck me then was how alien the life forms were. Gravity is not a factor in the development of an underwater body plan. Air and food are extracted directly from the surrounding medium, so respiration and digestion systems are radically different. I might as well have been on Mars. I remember thinking that most people, who only get the opportunity to look at the surface of the ocean, had never seen these creatures; most people didn’t even imagined that these bizarre and beautiful animals lurked mere meters away from the surface of the ocean. I was Hooked
I felt privileged to have caught a glimpse of an unexplored part of our planet. I was hooked, and I wanted to learn more about these weird and amazing creatures. This was the launch of an 8 year quest for me, one that culminated in me authoring a chapter on marine life in a book on Stanley Park ecology.
Underwater Chemists
I’m sure you’ve often heard that one of the reasons to save the Amazonian rain forest is because it may contain some species as yet unknown to science that could hold the key to a cure for cancer. It turns out that the same is true of the marine critters that inhabit our coast. Nudibranchs (sea slugs) and sponges are quite common in our waters (see some representative snapshots I brought back from my little expeditions). Both types of organisms are expert chemists: they produce a lot of novel organic compounds that they use to repel would-be predators. Fighting Cancer and Other Illnesses
I have a friend whose Ph.D. project involves collecting sponge and nudibranch species, grinding them down, separating the various chemical components that they produce and applying them to cancerous cells (click here to view her laboratory's website). It is her hope that one day, she will find one chemical that will inhibit the growth of cancerous cells, offering a potential treatment for this dreadful disease (everyone in my family eventually succumbs to this disease, so here’s hoping she finds something soon! :) ).
Protecting the Environment
Personally, I would advocate preserving marine habitats for the simple reason that they are beautiful to behold, but for those pragmatics out there, the cure to your future disease may soon come from the ocean. Knowing this, can anyone possibly argue that our oceans are not worth preserving?
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