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On December 16, 2000 the Underwater Council of BC held an underwater cleanup at the Lions Bay Marina. Relations between Lions Bay and divers have been strained at times so this was an effort on the part of the diving community to get on the good side of the locals. The marina is just around the corner from Kelvin Grove where we do most of our freediving practices so the Vancouver freedivers offered to help out. Besides, it would prove to be a lot of fun.

The weather prior to this event had been pretty nasty. There had been snow during the week and on the day before there had been heavy rain and wind. I had my doubts but organizer assured me that the event would go on regardless. On the day, the weather situation had changed drastically. Though there was still lots of snow and slush on the ground, it was sunny and clear with just a light chop on the water.

We arrived to find a well organized event with lots of divers milling about. The navy had even sent a team complete with a boat. I don't have an accurate figure but I'd guess that there would have been about 20 to 30 divers and almost as many people helping out at the surface.

From the freediving crowd we had Bruce Entus (on scuba), Eric Fattah, Stephanie Ortlepp, Peter Scott and I in the water. Kirk Krack showed up later to help out on shore, take photos and press the flesh.

When we got in we were surprised to see that the visibility was as good as it was. From the surface we could see the bottom clearly 20 feet below. There was just a little fresh water runoff very close to shore, which clouded visibility slightly. We also discovered that finding junk on the bottom would not be much of a problem.

Just a few feet from the launching ramp we found large items that the scuba divers had passed right over. We found some metal wheels and a number of sheets of metal roofing. Bringing these items up wasn't usually too much trouble but the metal roofing required Stephanie and I to peel off all of the sea stars and swim it to shore together. We didn't use lift bags; we just kicked hard to get items to the surface. We spent a fair bit of time just unloading junk at the launching ramp. It was pretty dirty work and I was glad to have my DIY semi-dry on.

After cleaning out the area in the immediate vicinity of the boat launch, Stephanie and I worked the adjacent area in about 30 feet of water. Eric and Peter worked in the deeper water well off shore. I don't know how much they found out there but Stephanie and I found a bottom heavily populated by tires of various sizes. The tire zone was challenging work because some tires were large and all were half-buried in the bottom.

We also spent some time relieving some of the scuba divers of their loads, usually tires or goody bags full of junk. The scuba divers were easy to spot because of their bubble
streams and were all quite happy to relinquish their loads.

We left the icy water after having been in it for one hour and forty minutes. The heavy exertion had kept us from freezing before then. Kirk was quick with the hot chocolate (and digital camera) once we got out. There were barbecues set up cooking smokies and doughnuts galore for afterwards. The atmosphere in the slushy parking lot was positively festive. We had gained a lot of curiosity, amazement and awareness of freediving while helping out a worthy cause.