Today Natasha's cousin Richard and his wife Alison came to visit us on the island.It was so nice of them to make the trek on the ferry from Tsawwassen to see us.We had a great time :) After a fabulous lunch of all you can eat homemade soup and breadsticks at Pagliachi's (if ever you are in Victoria, we would highly recommend this place for lunch), the four of us took a stroll down the breakwater. There was a cool breeze but the sun was shining brightly. For Chris and I, this was our dive site check out :)

We wandered back to the Ogden Point Dive shop to rent our gear - only to find out they don't rent dry suit underwear with a dry suit! To top it off, the best fit they could find for Natasha was a medium-large (what Chris normally wears). The staff were very nice and let her dig through the pile of random lost and found clothes and borrow some.She wound up in super baggy army green fleecy attire which kept her nice and warm in the garbage bag suit.We made the kilometre long hike down to the end of the breakwater wearing some 80 lbs of gear and proceeded to climb down the giant stone blocks.There were a couple of guys on the end fishing so we asked them what they were catching. "Catching a buzz" was the reply - ahh, gotta love BC J

We did a crazy giant stride onto our side in to the water and then tried to descend.After jumping in the water and struggling a little (Natasha was underweighted), we sank beneath the cool waters of the Pacific.We dropped down onto a garden of white plumous anenomes and slowly made our way back along the breakwater wall.There is tons of life living among the boulders that make up the wall - we saw large (2-3' long) lingcod, anenomes of all colors and lots of kelp.At one point, we looked up toward the surface and saw a beautiful canopy of kelp, swaying gently in the waves…As Chris was getting a bit down on air, he signalled to come up to 10m so that we could start swimming back toward shore slowly.When we came up, unbeknownst to Chris, Natasha lost her buoyancy and went to the surface and he spent a few minutes looking for her before coming up to safety stop depth and finding her at the surface.After signalling, we continued to swim back through a giant (giant!) school of silvery fish that must have numbered in the thousands.Chris dove down to check out a small decorator crab that was sitting on the edge of a kelp leaf.He played with him a bit - letting him nip at his glove with his blue-tinted claws.

After swimming a bit further, we decided to exit the water and walk back on the blocks.What an ordeal!It was tough climbing the 3 feet high cut-stone of the breakwater with the waves crashing over (and gently at that!) rolling us from side to side.Between that and the sheer weight, we were worried we wouldn't make it!Obviously we did, but not without a few sore muscles the next day.