Pics from British Columbia, Canada

[JohnK]

Excellent pics John !!!!!

[John Gulliver]

Originally Posted by Lou

Hi guys


Yep, we did the same, all by internet or phone. We had 10 days away, with 5 days diving for under £800 each. It really is remarkably cheap and I would go back in a shot!

Glad you had a good time, John. I have looked at the photos and it brings it all back...DId you see the wolf eels or the GPO? The GPO dive at the old ferry dock was strange in comparison to the others. Sheltered from the current it has none of the anenome life, but a muddy bottom lets some huge sea pens grow. Of course, the octopi are the main attraction!

I would thoroughly recommend anyone to get themselves out there if they like cold water diving. Vancouver Island is stunningly beautiful too!

Lou

Yep, did the Giant Pacific Octopus dive at the ferry wreck and saw two pussies but Mike and another guy who helped find them stirred up so much silt from the bottom flushing them out with bleach (shame on them!) that the pics look as though they were taken in a blizzard. I didn't see any wolf eels and neither did any of the other three from Sweden but one was seen by several people on one of the dives. Mike says they can no longer rely on finding them in their old lairs. They seem to move about more these days. I was surprised not to see any as I've seen several on each of my previous trips. Taken as a whole, we think the diving is actually better further North, around Port Hardy and God's Pocket Resort. There are more species of fish up there (only quillback and one tiger rockfish this trip as compared to large shoals of black rockfish, dozens of china rockfish, lots of copper rockfish and numerous specimens of the other 30 species of rockfish previously) as well as a lot more nudibranchs (I didn't see a single orange peel nudibranch on this trip, whereas I've seen several every day previously), and the anenomes are twice as big at the north end of Vancouver Island. Having said that, we did some wonderful dives at Quadra and Mike and Dar are wonderful hosts. I'll be going back to Quadra this time next year as my local dive shop has asked me to lead a group (at their expense - yes, I know I'm a jammy sod) and am already looking foward to it but I hope my next private trip to BC will be back to God's Pocket as the diving we did in that area in September '98 was among the best I've done anywhere. Browning Pass alone has a dozen world-class sites. But anybody doing their first trip to BC would think the diving around Quadra amazing.

[Lou]

Mike behaved himself finding the octopus for us. I think he figured that with two veggies who had already made comments about such things he should leave his squeegy bottle on the boat.


Maybe we should go for God's Pocket next then. We had a few varieties of rockfish and lots of nudibranchs of differing sorts but for a first trip it was awesome to just see the difference between Pacific fish and our Atlantic ones.

The hot tub was a welcome bonus too!

[John Gulliver]

The reason we haven't been back to God's Pocket is that friends who have been there since told us that the owner, Bill Weeks, seems to have lost interest. He is only about 40 but is a bit of a hypochondriac. He thinks he has a serious heart condition but the doctors in Vancouver can't find anything wrong with him! Hopefully, he will soon give up and sell out to a new owner who is more interested in making a go of things and keeping customers satisfied. He took over the divecentre only a few weeks before we were there in '98 and was keen and eager to please at that time but things seem to have gone downhill since then. God's Pocket Resort is a great divecentre, with better accommodation than Dynamike, and the location is perfect, close to some excellent sites, so it would be a pity if things didn't improve. We will try to keep an eye on it with the help of our undercover agents during the next few months.

[HelenM]

Wow John, that looks absolutely fantastic... Canada has definitely just gone onto my list of must dive destinations (pretty high up too). I'm surprised (and pleased!) to see it's so cheap too....

[Lawrence Debono]

Well done John, great pics. It looks like BC is a world away from this side of Canada. It’s so different under the surface. It looks packed with marine life and I'm certain that winter isn't bad over there.

Most of you were astonished with the prices. I can talk from my end here in Ontario. Unless you look for a 4 or 5 star resort the prices are going to be very reasonable in Canada. Gasoline is definitely cheaper than UK and Europe. Food is cheap and very well inspected, etc. Avoid fast food and get the real steak and lobster.

The diving in these areas is wreck oriented. Basically a lot of wooden schooners and some large steel freighters, etc. Vis can be OK to zilch. The St Lawrence and the great lakes are infested with wrecks, if any of you are interested. BC is different – warmer weather, more rain and salt water. The Rockies have their own kind of diving – high altitude different marine life some minor cave and cavern diving and mostly gin clear waters. Winter definitely ice diving. Quebec is again different than any thing else. The inner parts you have the river but further out you have the Atlantic. Again Marine life at this point is weird to say the least. By the Saginaw River you get the Greenland Sharks and further out in the gulf you get the whales. There are also numerous wrecks over there too.

What John had done - ordering every thing by him self is the way to go. I still do that when I go some 5 hours drive for diving, myself. I'm certain that that's a huge money saver than going with a tour operator.
- Check which general area you want to dive.
- Start looking at accommodation.
- Book your charters with two or so companies. You can't go wrong like this)
- Ask the charter companies for motel and restaurant listings.
- Book your lodging.
- Book a drive.
- Get your flight.
- And you're done.

The only draw back is that after Dec the dive sites will get limited because of the ice. Also I would encourage any one to bring their own kit. I still dive all year round but limit my depth in the winter.

Take care

Lawrence D

[John Gulliver]

Hi Lawrence, nice to hear from you! There's lots of useful information in your post. As regards prices in Canada, I can only agree with you. The expensive part is getting there - about £500 return Gothenburg to Vancouver via London with SAS and Air Canada, a bit less from London. Once you're there, prices are quite a lot lower than this side of the Atlantic. An example: A phone card that allows you to talk to Sweden for about 80 minutes costs 5 CAD (approx £2).
Taking your own dive gear is no problem with the Transatlantic two-piece luggage allowance - two bags/cases, each weighing up to 32 kg, plus two pieces of hand luggage, each weighing 10 kg, one "standard article" and one "personal article" (a fairly large camera case falls within the definition of the latter). The only problem is the stupid "aluminium 80's" (80 cu ft aluminium tanks) that are used everywhere in BC. 11 litres of air at 200 bar may be OK in the tropics but it makes for a short dive in cold BC waters. If only I could take my 15L 232 bar tank and pony! Ponies just don't seem to exist in BC, by the way, so you're diving without a redundant air source, I'm afraid.

[Lou]

John


We took our own ponies. Mike laughed at us - as an "old school" diver he thought we were talking alot of rubbish about AAS, but they still fitted well within our baggage allowance. We had to show they were empty at Heathorw, before we even checked in, but other than that it was little bother.

Agree about the daft tanks though. Still got 40min dives on average, and over an hour on the octopus dive.

Lou

[Adrian Kelland]

Sound like a job for some Buddy Twinning bands John....

Adrian

[Lou]

Adrian


We found that you wouldn't get the benefit of twins (unless you are a very heavy breather) as most dives were limted by slack anyway. When the Pacific Ocean decides it want to go through the 1/2 mile wide channel at Campbell River you can't really hang around and argue

Lou