23 YEARS
of
BC & ALASKA
LIVEABOARD DIVING

Passage by

MIKE LEVER, CAPTAIN OF NAUTILUS SWELL

from Luminous Sea

The diving of British Columbia and Alaska walks the line between temperate and true cold-water exploration. As the owner and Captain of four different British Columbia liveaboards, the underwater life in these waters has always fascinated me. Few are aware of how amazing the diving really is in British Columbia and Alaska.

It is hard to describe the strange sensation of drifting down sheer vertical walls, every square inch covered in invertebrate life. White anemones, which at first appear to be waving in the current, are in fact using harpoon-tipped tentacles to protect themselves and their cloned siblings from adjacent anemones. Voracious sunflower stars up to three feet across sweep over the landscape. All the mobile animals in their path scramble ahead, desperate to escape.

My boat, the Nautilus Swell, was the last liveaboard in British Columbia, and we will retire her on December 1, 2014. The Swell was built in 1912 as a coal fired steam tug. She was the last coal burner and was never converted to oil burning. Instead, a slow turning diesel engine was installed in the 1950’s. I often meet mariners who sailed on the Swell. You can feel her history in every creak of her timbers. It’s the end of an era, and very sad days.