Posted by Eric S on August 09, 2002 at 22:53:37:
A friend of mine who grew up in Ft. Bragg in a commercial fishing family told me all these stories of super deep cracks and canyons some where way up on the lost coast.
Right before the Vandamme party I did some research on this supposed very deep canyon that comes very close to shore somewhere around shelter cove and maybe north. I asked the old time North Coast divers at Sub Surface Progression about it and they new nothing.
Then someone (I can't remember who) made a post about a URL that showed an earial view of Vandamme, so I followed that to a link where I found this:
http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.asp?S=15&T=2&X=64&Y=692&Z=10&W=2
It is an ocean floor contour map of the very canyon I heard as rumor. It is called Delgada Canyon. In my estimation it is about 8-10 miles north of Shelter Cove and out about 1/2 mile. It gets very deep fast and studying the map I would say it is everything as impressive as the Monterey Trench. The surrounding shelf is very shallow , maybe 40 feet, then the canyon drops to over 500 feet almost instantly, then further out drops to several thousand feet.
My dive group and I are planning to do an expedition to this area in mid September on my boat. We will base camp in Shelter cove, launch the boat there, dive all the next day (or two), then return the following day.
I very seriously doubt that this canyon has ever been dove, so this may be a true virgin dive. I know I always say that but this time I really believe it's true. I am also planning to get advanced nitrox and trimix certs to accomplish this dive.
We are expecting to see an absolute visual assault of marine life due to the possible cold currents coming up from the depths including very good visibility.
So what do you guys think of this?