October 31st, 2006
Diving on Vancouver Island
For everyones first experience on Vancouver Island, I would suggest going to see Erin at Ogden’s Point Dive Shop and getting geared up to take a dive along the Ogden Point Breakwater. It is absolutely worth diving a few times.
Most of the year, there’s a ton of kelp growing along the entire length of the point, so getting in can be a little tricky if you don’t want the entire kelp forest wrapped around your tank, so I suggest a back-roll entry and then a slow heads-up swim through the kelp to a clear descent location.
Once down, keep a close eye out for Octopus, the beautiful anemone that surround the area, Dungeness Crabs, Wolf Eels and Seals, which can come out of nowhere and huge Lingcod.
It is quite simply a wonderful shore dive and one that could easily take up a full week of your time. There are five entry points, each progressively deeper, so start Monday at either end and there’s a good week of diving.
Then there are the wrecks. We dove the MacKenzie and on our way out, as we were approaching the site, a Humpback Whale broke the surface just as I was entering the water, not thirty feet away.
The dive itself is excellent but I suggest you make every effort to arrive at slack tide. Otherwise, you are in for a less than perfectly comfortable descent. However, once at the wreck, there is so much to see. When we were there, there was a giant Pacific Octopus living under the wreck.
The other area we visited was Race Rocks. Quite a wonderful location. The rocks themselves were covered with California Sea Lions, Stellars and Elephant Seals and let me tell you, if you’ve never been close to a Elephant Seal before, they are big. And rare. It is believed there are less than 500 in the world. Between 2,000 and 3,000 male California sea lions migrate to south Vancouver Island waters to winter.
Race Rocks is a protected marine area close to open ocean 12 nautical miles from Victoria. When you visit, please take a guided tour as this is a Canadian Treasure, to be sure.