Scuba Diving At Vancouver Island BC
One of my dive buddies Tai and I finally made it to BC for some scuba diving. BC has always been voted by many scuba divers as one of the top ten dive destinations in the world despite being a cold water diving location. This trip was not a full week one so we got to sample only some of what Vancouver Island had to offer for divers. We did not bother with Victoria nor did we make it up to the north areas of the island off Port Hardy and Port McNeil where the most lush marine life would be since it gets better the more north you go on Vancouver Island.
We flew into Nanaimo which is 1 1/2 hours north of Victoria and started with an initial checkout dive at a local shore site with my local contact Eric and his friend. Eric chose a dive site called Oak Point since it timed with slack tide for that afternoon we were diving there (more on slack tides later).
Before the trip, I heard reports of local BC divers using an average of 35 pounds or more of weight and I was not convinced that Tai and I would need so much. I’ve been diving with 20 pounds in my drysuit with minimal inner layers and 24 pounds with full layers quite okay in Ontario fresh water. Even down in the Galapagos salt water, I did most of my dives okay with 24 pounds.
So for the first dive I decided to go with 30 pounds thinking that I would be overweighted but to my surprise, I actually had trouble getting down and I had to fin kick my way down to depth. At the end of the dive I was light even after releasing all of the air out of my BCD and drysuit which required hanging onto a rock to do my safety stop. So now I realize why the local divers need so much weight to dive!
The first dive which was a shore dive was okay but visibility was not much better than current Ontario waters. We did almost 45 minutes with a 54 feet maximum depth in 13 C degrees water. Both Tai and I were pretty comfortable throughout the dive with this water temperature. Right away the marine life we saw was very different from anywhere else with lots of urchins which we had to avoid with their sharp spikes and big white tubular anenomes. We also saw rockfish and some smaller gobies which were totally orange in colour with black eyes. These little orange gobies are a lot cuter than the grey ones we have at Humber Bay. Much of the terrain was rocky was we expected since lower Vancouver Island had been reported to be like that.
After this first dive at Nanaimo, we had a 1 1/2 hour drive up to our next stop, Campbell River. This would be at about mid island halfway up since Vancouver Island is quite big.
Scuba Diving At Campbell River
The next morning we met up with Earl from Abyssal Diving Charters at the Campbell River docks. Earl doesn’t have a dive shop but operates out of a small hut right at the dock in front of his dive boat. He partners with the local dive shop for any gear rentals needed. Abyssal provided us with only steel tanks which was worth about 5 pounds of weight so this increased my amount to 35 pounds which I needed after having trouble getting down back in Nanaimo with 30.
We did a dive called Inner Grouse for 38 minutes with max depth of 48 feet in 11 C waters. The interesting thing about diving here in BC is that they have to time when the slack tides are. You cannot dive the various sites whenever you want because the currents can be too strong. So once the dive boats get to the dive sites, they have to wait until the currents calm down during slack tide when they are at the lowest and safe for diving.
The visibility here was way better than in Nanaimo. It was probably about 30-40 feet but were told that in the winter months, 100 feet visibility is common. Even with the summer BC visibility, we were able to see everything nearby and there’s definitely a LOT of life in these waters. Everything we saw in Nanaimo we saw more of here in Campbell River. More types of anemones and fish.
Our subsequent dives were 30 minutes average dive time in 35 to 45 feet water with 10 C temperature. Even with my drysuit, I got a bit chilled towards the end of the first dive and was borderline for the second. I since learned that many local BC divers now use heated vests underneath their drysuits which is a great idea and if I lived there, it would be a no brainer to get one.
We did see quite a few seals as our dive boat passed by a small colony but did not see any during our actual dives. We also did not see any wolf eels nor octopus which were my main marine life targets for this trip. But perhaps one of the big highlights for me during the Campbell River dives was seeing the Sunflower Seastars which have 24 arms and Tai caught one or two on video above. I had a solo dive on the second day at Campbell River and saw one that was bigger than a tractor trailer tire. It looked like some alien monster from outer space. The video does not reflect the fish life we saw especially on my final dive where there were quite a lot of big size fish. We just did not have any camcorders running when they were around.
So overall, this was definitely worth going to Vancouver Island BC for scuba diving and I personally would return especially to dive the northern parts off Port Hardy and Port McNeil where the best diving on the island is reported – I’ve included some videos of BC diving below so you can see what’s in the water that we missed on this trip.
Scuba Diving Around North Vancouver Island
Here’s what can be seen in northern Vancouver Island. I was stunned by the marine life in the video especially realizing that it’s all in Canada.
Scuba Diving Around Mid Vancouver Island
Here’s another video this time showing more of the marine life near Nanaimo where we dove. The diving still looks pretty good although not as lush as in the northern parts of the island. There are a few dive resorts to stay at in the region where divers can get in multiple days of boat diving. There are also some shore dives off Nanaimo, Courtney and Comox.
A big attraction here in the mid island is the sea lions and stellar seals encounters which we don’t seem to see up in the north end of the island. One operator runs special charters to see these crazy encounters near Hornby Island but not until mid to late November continuing through the winter months. Another operator runs similar charters with the sea lions to another location called Vivian Island and can do them in October and on. I would love to do this dive except it may run into my winter ski season. There is skiing on Vancouver Island during the winter but I can’t imagine having to lug both my ski and scuba diving gear all on a single trip!
Scuba Diving Around South Vancouver Island Near Victoria
Finally, the south end around Victoria does have diving including some convenient shore dives right in the city. The video below shows one such dive site that seems very easily accessible. While there is some nice marine life that is much better than what we have here in Ontario, we can also see that there are more exposed rocks especially compared to that of Browning Pass in the north.
There is a reported excellent dive site called Race Rocks which is a boat charter from Victoria but it is not often run because the currents are high and the dive operators have to schedule these trips when there are slack tides. They allow only advanced divers to go on this charter because of the currents. Race Rocks apparently does have some nice seals action but again this is a trip that is not run often because of the conditions.
So far from what I can gather is that one cannot have both the best dive experiences like we would get up in Browning Pass plus the crazy seals encounters where you are surrounded by 30 seals as in the video above all on the same trip. They seem to be in different locations as well as different months of the year. With the diving up in Browning Pass closing before the ‘seals’ season starts in the late fall through winter, there’s no way we can get all of it unless you stay on Vancouver Island for an extended stay. So at least for a first trip, you would have to make a choice — get the best high quality diving up at Browning Pass a bit earlier in late summer/early fall or go for the seals encounter experience in late fall/winter.
Although the Browning Pass resorts as well as the one in Hornby Island sound nice with an all inclusive stay for diving 3-4 dives per day, all meals and accommodations, I don’t think I’m personally ready to do more than two dives in 5 to 7 degrees C per day. So if I were to go up to Browning Pass or Hornby Island, it would be day dive operators I would use to do 2 dives maximum per day and spend the rest of the day warming back up!
I will go back to dive Vancouver Island again to see the wolf eels and giant Pacific octopus on future trips for sure. Being within Canada, subsequent BC trips will be fairly easy.
