Don Ravensbergen
November 2nd, 2012 was a date that that had a profound impact on my life, and sadly, it was not in a positive way. I lost a friend and a dive buddy that day, and others lost a father, a husband and a member of a strong religious group. Scott was loved by many and will be sorely missed. As much as I love diving (and I still do upon writing this August 23/2025), it was made clear to me that things can go horribly wrong, with final and fatal consequences. This message is for all those who would try scuba diving. Over all, I consider diving a safe sport, but make no mistake in thinking that diving is anything less than an “extreme sport”. Complacency in your actions and or thinking, is just one of the dangers you cannot fall into! Do your buddy checks! Know your dive partners gear setup, such as where their detachable weights are located (integrated pouches or weight belt). Is your air turned on? Not only an eighth of a turn where one can read their pressure gage, but fully turned on, insuring one has full volume! I don’t want to harp on this but believe it when someone says “shit happens” because it so does. You never want to witness first responders carrying a lifeless body, that was only moments before, your good friend and dive buddy. Trust me when I say that the feelings of helplessness, sorrow, and regret can haunt you for a long time! So please take care! Have fun but be vigilant, and occasionally practice your skills.
Tom Hlavac
There is a lot of exploring to be enjoyed diving from the pebble beach at Beachcomber Regional Park. Swimming from the beach, once you pass through an eelgrass bed keep slightly right till you hit the edge, go down to 30 or 35 feet and swing right. After 4 to 5 mins you will see the "shallow" wall. This has deep crevices, an overhang, boulders, and quite a few rockfish (quillback, china, black), kelp greenlings, ling cod and many smaller fish. Lots of invertebrates too. This is a great dive for an experienced open water/advanced open water diver. If you are good managing your air (note I didn't say Nitrox), keep going along the broken rock at the 40 - 50 foot contour. Another few minutes you will see rounded bedrock and the start of a stepped wall. This wall starts at advanced open water depths, and the upper levels have many crevices, boulders, etc - nice underwater landscapes. After app 14 minutes from the beach, you will be at the top of a very deep and steep wall. At 130 you can't see the bottom. Ling cod, yellowtail, black and yelloweye rockfish. Some tigers also, look for possible wolf eels and octopus around when you see tigers.
S. Auringer
My cousin and I dove Madrona wall Jan 16 of 2016, we noticed 3 sea lions right away but they kept their distance. After diving the wall, which was a really fun dive with the flashlights, looking for animals, lots of fish, a field of sea cucumbers, moon snails and large scallops. We were finished our first tanks , coming back thru the maze, a grouping of rocks, and onto the second dive. We were about 60' down, I looked out to the west and saw a single california sea lion come up to us. He began to circle between us doing figure 8s, and we were about 6' apart. He swam with us for about 30 seconds, swam away and back three times in total. On his last visit my cousin and I were about 12' apart and he had his head down watching something in the sand when then the sea lion snuck up behind him and gave him a bite at the back of his leg, by his butt. My cousin just looked behind to find this sea lion about 1' from his mask....blub, blub, blub, the bubbles shot out of his reg, he was a little startled to say the least. Once I saw he was ok I almost peed my drysuit laughing. He said he thought it was me trying to get his attention grabbing his leg. It was one of my best dives for sure, lots of life, easy shore dive, vis was 40', and not busy. We had the go pro down for the first but left it for the second so missed the sea lions. Looking forward to the next dive. Maybe the Saskatchewan.