Northern Vancouver Island Diving-Incredible!
Northern Vancouver Island offers world-class diving opportunities
for a variety of dive levels.
The Upper QUEEN
CHARLOTE STRAIT is accessed through Port Hardy. The main dive
areas include the BROWNING PASS area - arguably the most intense
marine life area in British Columbia and in North America.
Marine like includes some of the best soft corals in North
America, intense invert populations on walls and reefs, great
fish populations, and very good visibility most of the year
because of the absence of river run-off (no rivers in the
immediate area!)
Intermediate dive
sites include THE WALL, 7 TREE ISLAND, SNOWFALL, CROCKER
ROCK, HUNT ROCK,
the NORTH WALL,
ROCK OF LIFE, FRANK'S ROCK, FISH BOWL, NIGEI PINNACLE AND
HUSSAR POINT and
several more.
Easily the best
underwater photography area in BC(British Columbia), Canada
and North America, BROWING PASS is located 10 miles NW from
Port Hardy. One of the additional benefits of this area is
Browning Pass is protected and diveable in almost any weather.
DESERTERS ISLANDS
- several excellent intermediate sites, including BARRY ISLET,
WHISTLER PASS, TOY-MAN
GAP, and FANTASEA, are very good sites for marine life and
under water photography.
Good weather access only. 10 miles North from Port hardy.
NAKWAKTO RAPIDS
- advanced diving in a high current area (considered the fastest
tidal current area
in the world), great for seeing/photographing rare and unusual
marine
life including
sub-tidal goosenecks. 20 miles North from Port Hardy.Good
weather
access only.
WEYNTON PASS, also
generally refereed to as 'STUBBS ISLAND' area -3 or 4 very
good advanced current
sites, including several locations on Stubbs Island , plus
Plumper Rock, Plumper
Wall, NOrth-east Pearse Island , and the Blowhole. Very good
underwater photography sites, especially on smaller tides.
Know for great soft corals, anemones, scalpins, hydroids and
other inverts. 10 Miles form Port McNeill, 3 miles
from Telegraph Cove.
Further east are other dives including more "inside"
areas with
generally good populations
or rockfish and inverts.
KYUQUOT, QUATSINO
& NOOTKA SOUNDS -
This large area
includes the northern-most 125 miles of the west coast of
Vancouver
Island. The geography
of the outside coast is spectacular. Very popular as a sport
fishing destination
for many years. Now becoming popular as a remote dive area.
There are 2 main
types of dive sites in this area - open coast, and inlet.
OVer the
whole area there
are many very good open coast dive sites with good populations
of
open-coast species,
including rockfish, and the tougher encrusting inverts. The
best
areas include outside
the Bunsby Islands and the Barrier Islands of Kyuquot Sound,
the entrance to Esperanza Inlet, and pinnacles and reefs of
the Bajo Reef outside Nootka.
All of these sites
are very weather and swell dependent. Some good "inside"
sites, with
most of the invert
life generated by current flow as opposed to swell surge,
are located in
Nootka (Savedra
Wall, "Boca", Esperanza Bluff...); Kyuquot (Rugged
Point, Surprise Wall, Cachalot Inlet...); Quatsino (Kains
pinnacles, Quatsino Narrows...).
This area compares
very favorably with Barkley Sound, a popular dive area further
south on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Although the
diving here is similar to Barkley Sound, some of the marine
life populations are more abundant in this northern area.
One of the great things include very good rockfish and invertebrate
observation and photography opportunities. Inner waters provide
interesting invertebrate populations, and occasional but regular
6 gill shark sightings.
Access Quatsino
through Coal Harbour or Winter Harbour. Access Kyuquot through
Zeballos and access
Nootka through Zeballos, Tahsis or Gold River.
(Thanks to John
DeBoeck for this accurate dive information; John is one of
the dive
operators in the
North Island area)
To plan you dive
trip please call Vancouver Island Destinations 250-956-8222
Let us provide you
with choices that will suit your dive skill, budget, needs
and wants.
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