A few years back a friend of mine and I decided to take our love for the ocean and our entrepreneurial skills and start a dive charter company. We ran charters for clients up and down the coast of British Columbia. Each week we would head out to Race Rocks to dive with the sea lions and once a month we would put together an adventure.
Our adventures took friends, and our paying clients to seldom seen remote locations along the coast of Vancouver Island. We would dive places that we had heard about in stories or use the depth sounder to find sea mounts and pinnacles then drop an anchor and dive down to see what we would find.
These trips were pure fun in everyway.
One of these particular trips was around Port Renfrew. We would head south from there to find and possibly dive the sea caves that dot the shoreline along the coast.
In the months leading up to the trip, we had met and interviewed an old sailor and ship builder living in Sooke named Maywell. Maywell was and amazing elderly gentleman who invited us into his home to tell stories of the old days and the adventures he had canoeing up and down the coast when he was younger.
He had an image framed on a wall of him standing looking out from the one of the caves along the coast. It was memorizing, I stared at it several times wondering what it would be like to stand where he stood and explore both above and below the water line. To this day I wish I had taken a picture of it.
He was gracious enough to give us a general idea where some of these caves were and what to look for as we motored down the shore looking for potential spots to jump in the water and investigate the caves. One of the most intriguing stories was of a sea lion rookery that was hidden behind a cliff and was only accessible by the caves and underwater passageways. We had plans to dive other spots along the way as well, jumping in the water whenever we could.
We planned our trip for months and invited a group of adventurous experienced divers to join us. The trip was planned to last over four days and take us from Port Renfrew to south of Sombrio Beach and back again.
We picked a weekend that gave us the best possible chance of getting to the caves each day. Weather on the west coast can be very unpredictable and diving in areas that have very little information or history can be very hazardous.
Our goal was to find the caves, assess if they were diveable and then go exploring.
Day one looked so promising, we arrived in Port Renfrew with sunny skies and light wind. After setting up camp we launched the boat for a couple shakedown dives to check all the gear and do a little exploration around the mouth of Port San Juan.
Conditions were perfect and the marine life was fantastic in the two spots we jumped in.
Day two we headed out full of excitement ready to find and explore the cave. As we ventured further and further south we found cave after cave dotting the landscape. Some very small and completely inaccessible, while others were much larger, big enough to dive into if we could get close enough wit the boat. The unfortunate part with all of this was that the ocean was just too rough to venture to close to any of the caves. Open ocean swell can be perfect for surfing as it breaks closer to shore, but for diving having massive rolling waves crashing against the rocks and shoreline was just too dangerous for us to get in the water.
We did come across the fabled sea lion rookery than can be only heard but not seen. We could hear the barking of the sea lions echoing across the water. Hundreds of them calling out to us, seemingly enticing us to venture into the caves but in the end we had to settle for them doing their underwater ballet in open water away from the shore and the crashing waves.
As we returned from a somewhat disappointing day two, we unexpectedly had engine trouble and that brought about the end of the adventure.
Looking back I still daydream about the photo on Milton’s wall and what could have been if we had a perfect trip. But nonetheless we managed to have a great adventure with some great people chasing a myth or is it a legend.
I have returned several times to the area but still have not been able to dive any of the cave.
One day, maybe.
Thanks for reading
Scott
For more stories and images - http://www.scottstevensonphotography.ca/