On Monday afternoon, after our dives at the Lord Strathcona and the Saganaga, I helped supervise a test-tank dive that a stunt team was doing in the OceanQuest pool. Netflix is currently filming a new limited series called The Sea Creature that’s set in Newfoundland, and they’ve been working with OceanQuest for all the boats and diving operations they need. 
As a result, I got to help with their rehearsal dive! The goals were to make sure all the stunt diver Darren’s rental gear fit and worked, and to shoot a demo of the lines he says at the surface. Two other crew members from the stunt team were there too, and we helped Darren get his kit set up and in the water. After that, the rehearsal dive itself was fairly straightforward: he would surface and say his lines as he would in the show while Angie, one of the two stunt crew, recorded the scene. It was really interesting to get a window into how diving is done on TV, I’m really grateful that Rick asked me to join.
Tuesday was my first dive back with my camera (a real learning curve to get used to shooting with dry gloves), as I had wanted to make sure I was acclimated to the dive profiles of the wrecks and the cold water temperature before adding the complication of a camera. Armed with my TG-7 and a truly insane number of undergarment layers, I was ready and excited to see the last Bell Island wreck, the Rose Castle. It was a really cool dive, though Glenn and I couldn’t stay down long since the deck of the ship was at about 100 feet. What I did see of the deck and some of the portholes was really cool – there’s a whole control room in there! 
For our second dive, we went back to the PLM. Since Glenn and I were both properly weighted this time, we actually got to explore it more! It’s a beautiful ship, and we took some refuge from the current by dropping down the bow and seeing the huge anchor that’s still dangling off the side.
Unfortunately, Wednesday’s winds were too strong for us to take the boat out, so the group explored some of the nearby towns instead, and we had beautiful group lunches and dinners. On Thursday we were able to return to the Mermaid in full swing! We all wanted to go back to the Rose Castle, so we dove that one first. 
Now that Glenn and I had seen the layout of the ship underwater, we were able to make a better dive plan: when we got down there, we used our limited bottom time to absolutely book it to the stern gun to see it before we had to drift back with the current.
Friday also had bad winds so that morning we called off the boat dives. Instead, we piled into trucks and drove out to the Conception Harbor dive site, a set of three rusted wrecks just off the shore in Conception Bay. The bow half of one of the ships was sticking right out of the water, which looked really cool from the surface. Below, all three whaling wrecks were covered in a ribbony kelp that hid sea stars, crabs, urchins, and even a little lumpfish I saw hanging out by the surface!
Most divers were pretty wiped from that, but Lauren and I opted for one more dive that morning, this time at the Harbor Main site. Harbor Maine wasn’t a wreck, instead it was a little cove with hundreds of flounder all over the seafloor, and urchins strewn around wearing small “hats” made of out shells and rocks.
We got home in plenty of time to get ready for our final dinner together. Debbie and Rick took over the kitchen as they made their signature seafood pasta, and we all gathered around the dinner table to enjoy a beautiful meal (extremely well-cooked, the fresh cod was amazing) while we talked about our fantastic week and swapped all kinds of stories. What a warm and wonderful final day.
My time in Newfoundland felt like it flew by. As I was packing my things it seemed like I had only just arrived! I’m incredibly grateful to Rick Stanley for inviting me and hosting me at OceanQuest. He and Debbie are such wonderful people, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to spend time with them and get to know them better. I almost can’t believe the week I had! It was extraordinary, and full of new dive experiences, impressive wrecks, and warm soups. I’ll cherish these memories for a long time. What an experience!
– Sofia