These photos are from July 1, 2012. I had heard rumours of decent visibility in the Nanaimo area so I drove up here and chose to dive at Blueback Park ("Tyee") mostly at random, but also because the trail is short and there's no long swim. From what I've seen, this is the busiest dive site in the area, but today it was really crowded. One of the local dive shops (Nanaimo Dive Outfitters) was having a Canada day barbecue and there were dozens of divers taking advantage of an excuse to go for a dive. I saw a few familiar faces and I tagged along for part of a dive with them. They were doing the "Tyee to Dolphin Beach" (and back) marathon dive (with rebreathers) which I didn't have the air for, but they showed me a wolfeel that I hadn't seen before out to the left of the entry-point. Visibility was about 6 feet or less in the shallows, but it cleared to about 40 feet below 25 feet deep. After I waved goodbye, I turned around and visited the area to the right of the entry-point, where I followed directions (thanks, Shirley) to another pair of wolfeels that I've never seen before even though I visit this area every time I dive here. I did a second dive with a video camera. None of the footage turned out since the camera refused to focus. I swam out to the right again. When the rocky area ended, I followed the sand farther to the right (about 80 feet deep). There were sea pens, feather stars, a Puget Sound king crab and crimson anemones on the sand. Another reef started up that had swarms of smallish quillback rockfish on it. It seemed to go down to at least 100 feet deep. The reef ended and I continued to swim across the sand to another reef before I had to turn around. I'll have to try this again when I get my video camera working.
