A Qualicum Beach resident has spent at least three days every week diving in the ocean since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carl Sorensen always had diving on his bucket list.
"I realized I'm not getting any younger. I needed just to do it, so I signed up for the course right away,” said Sorensen.
Now, he is a dive master for a local dive shop in Nanaimo and films underwater. He captures breathtaking video footage of ocean creatures many people will rarely get to witness.
“It's the most relaxing extreme sport you can do,” he said.
For Sorensen, diving into the deep blue sea is meditative.
“The more relaxed you are, the less gas you're consuming, the longer you can stay under and the more comfortable you are,” he said.
When people ask him what he finds below the surface, he just shows them.
"You can't describe it with words. You have to show how it moves in the water,” Sorensen said. “That's the ultimate expression of what we see and do under there."
He’s lived on Vancouver Island his entire life and had no idea how great the diving was until he started.
“For me, it’s a way to let people know what’s down there,” he said. “If people don’t know what’s there, they have no want to protect it."
Instead of selling his footage, he shares it with everyone on YouTube and Instagram. Most recently, he published two hours of wild octopus footage, taken from more than 600 dives.
“It’s just kind of a Hail Mary of all the octopus footage that I was able to get,” said Sorensen.
When underwater, he’s filming with a camera system that has an underwater housing, different lenses and lights.
“I really got into it. The learning curve is super steep because everything is reliant on your buoyancy control.”
It took Sorensen about a year to learn the camera.
Three years in, he feels confident in his ability.
Filming octopus
Each time he dives, Sorensen gets excited to see an octopus.
"They're quite common. They're in abundance, but seeing them outside of their den, that's pretty rare.”
That’s where his luck comes in.
"I used to get really excited when I'd see them in their dens and now I want to see them out and doing octopus things, you know, conducting octopus business,” said Sorensen.
Octopuses have crawled all over his camera. One time, one grabbed his wife’s arm.
“The way they move, they're very alien-like and erratic. Sometimes they're very curious,” he said. "They sit there and just stare at you, moving their eyes in and out.”
He’s even filmed one sleeping and was able to get within just a few inches of it.
“They're all individuals, right? They all do their own thing,” he said.
Each octopus prefers different food: it could be Dungeness crab, red rock crab, Puget Sound king crab or sea snails.
Get out and try diving
When Sorensen's in the water, it’s not just octopus he sees.
"Sea lions always catch us by surprise, because with a mask on, you have a limited field of vision, and when they come in, they're the size of a pickup truck,” he said.
One of his favourite experiences was when he was diving with his wife. Roughly a quarter of a mile off the beach, they heard a mom and calf humpback whale.
“The whole dive was just them singing and it sounded like they were right next to us. It was so loud.”
The dream would be seeing whales underwater.
“If I had that happen, I think I could quit diving at that point because that would just be the pinnacle,” said Sorensen.
When asked if he ever gets scared, he admitted there are moments.
"I watched Jaws as a kid one too many times,” he said.
For people living on the island who enjoy the outdoors, give diving a try, said Sorensen.
“If I could encourage other people to get into the sport or marine conservation, then that's a win for me.”
