Canadian Diving

[Pretty Flowers]

Does anyone have any experience of diving in Canada and specifically Lake Ontario.

I understand that there is a lot of lake diving in the summer season, especially wreck diving. Does anyone have any idea about sites etc?


Cheers,


Sarah

[Mr T.]

Hi Sarah,

John Gulliver's yer man for Canada! And Lou & Caroline have also done a stint there too!

Hopefully they'll be along shortly with the SP.

I think member Lawrence DeBono lives there, so he might be of use to you too.

Good luck

[John Gulliver]

Lawrence Debono, on this site, orignally from Malta, has lived in Ontario for years and knows everything there is to know about diving there. Send him a PM or e-mail. He is a very helpful guy. The part of Canada I know a bit about, and love, British Columbia, is a long way from Ontario.

[Lawrence Debono]

Originally Posted by John Gulliver

Lawrence Debono, on this site, orignally from Malta, has lived in Ontario for years and knows everything there is to know about diving there. Send him a PM or e-mail. He is a very helpful guy. The part of Canada I know a bit about, and love, British Columbia, is a long way from Ontario.

I saw my name and I taught I'll give my 2 cents worth. Stay off the greater Toronto area in Lake Ontario. There is too much prolusion, but the Port Delouse (I think it spells like that), near St Catherine’s there is an awesome wooden wreck in 30m. The other side of Toronto Oshawa and Bowmanville you will find a few scattered there too. There is a big concentration in Kingston - where Lake Ontario spills into the St Lawrence River. Further down river at the 1000 Islands you would find even more Wrecks. Be careful from the current here and a dry suit after November is advisable. If you are really hard core down at the gulf of the St Lawrence 12 hour drive from Toronto there is the Empress of Ireland in 44 meters to the silt.

Leaving that area you might want to try Lake Erie. Maximum depth is about 65meters and average is about 20m. Great wrecks but the temperament of this lake is to be respected. It could stir up 6 ft waves in under 20 minutes.

Lake Huron is dotted with wrecks and there is a great concentration up in Fathom 5 Marine Park. That is a bit touristy for me I prefer the real wrecks that went down in storms like the Wexford. Lake Huron will take much longer to warm up.

If you like drift dives we go in the Niagara River. NO not down Niagara Falls but if you keep going some 20 or so KM yes you would make it down. There is also Hell's Hole with some 10Kn currents and is well over 50m deep. Not advisable, trust me it will push you from 55 to under 20m in just a few minutes and then suck you back in the deep again. That is too dangerous.

The water here will get cold but under 3 meters it will always be above 3C. Although it sounds very cold, a lot of divers still dive and it isn't a superman's job. In the winter a lot of areas will have ice but in the summer Jul and Aug you will find Kingston and The St Lawrence to be about 21C. The Rivers will not have a thermo cline and in deeper lakes like Ontario or Huron will remain cold in the bottom - 10C - 15C if you go deep. Avoid moving ice on any body of water. Several square km's of ice can drift and cover an area in very few minutes. If a lake is partially covered don't dive it!!!!!!!!!!Even if you got an ice ticket and have been trained avoid it or you will get trapped. Visibility in the fall will be OK 10 - 15M. In the winter is can be JIN - as far as you can see. In the summer you can be lucky or it could be ZERO. Avoid diving from shore after the rain. We also have zebra muscles that cover most of the bottom of out these waters. They filter the water and clean it up very well but the darn things are razor sharp - don't land on your knees and avoid contact.

The Great Lakes cover a total of 246489 sq KM, 8663sq KM belong to Canada the Rest to the US. They are actually considered fresh water seas. It is very convenient that one doesn’t have to rinse the gear. Marine life in the summer in certain areas is quite some thing. Don't expect it to belike the Caribbean, but there is a variety of fish. Some are bass, lingcod, carp, catfish, perch, walleye, smelt, pike and musky (freshwater barracuda), sturgeon and Greenland shark.

If you need more info email me and I'll try to help you out.

Check these sites out -
http://www.scubaq.ca/ontarioscubadiving/index.htm

Cheers
Lawrence D

[Pretty Flowers]

Originally Posted by Lawrence Debono

If you need more info email me and I'll try to help you out.

Check these sites out -
http://www.scubaq.ca/ontarioscubadiving/index.htm

Cheers
Lawrence D

Cheers, very informative... not sure about diving in 3 degree water though...

Are there any dive clubs out there that you can recommend?

[Paul Evans]

I,ll try to get someone from the Ontario board to contact you


Better still join, details below

[Paul Evans]

If your going to Ontario, check this board out

http://ontariodiving.com/.

There are some really nice people up there who care a great deal about their diving, Tom R. runs Northern Tech Diver, GUE/Padi

http://www.northerntechdiver.com/

I' on the board there as well.

If you go, let us all know how you get on!!!!!

[Lawrence Debono]

In the greater Toronto region and Mississauga and Etobicoke I recommend our club - the Ontario Underwater Explorers. Great club, largest number of members in these areas, loads of dives especially in the summer. The average cost is about $55 - $60 per day. These are mostly big boats that we charter. Tech diving, ehh I'd like to see more in the club. There are a couple of British members too. We have use of a 21 foot deep pool every week where you get to see all kinds of strange trials - RB's, DPV, new dry suits and weight contraptions. We also have a miniature sub race every year. The membership also gets you in the Underwater Council of Canada which is the liaison between divers and goverment.

These are our links (don't laugh at the pictures)
http://www.ontario-underwater-explorers.org/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ontari...aterexplorers/

You must have noted that GREEN is the primary colour in fresh water unlike blue of the salt water. It can be very clear a lot of times.

I’m curious – are coming on a brief visit or to stay? Are going to big TO or the surrounding cities? Send me an email.

This is the link of one of the best dive stores in the Niagara region –
http://www.dansdiveshop.ca/
If you want to dive the Empress of Ireland in Quebec check this out –
http://www.sportstcyr.com/index_en.htm
This is the best and the most well equipped tech diving store that I could find –
http://www.recorder.ca/divetech/
This place is in Tobermory / Fathom 5 –
http://www.diversden.on.ca/

The Niagara Divers Association is another very good club –
http://www.vaxxine.com/nda/
Go to the gallery of this site –
http://members.rogers.com/seaviewimaging/index.html
Some thing about Lake Erie –
http://www.iaw.on.ca/scubalakeerie/

Enjoy the sites

Lawrence D

[Pretty Flowers]

Only just caught the end of this post so apologies for the amount of time that it's taken me to reply.

I've sussed out and joined Ontario Diving under me real moniker - Sarah Farrand

I'm emigrating on the 8th January, but sadly the dive kit will probably take a bit longer to arrive than that.

Some of the sites look really interesting, and I'm severely suffering from non diving itch as well...

Will definately be joining the dive club, so probably will see you in flesh very soon...