Vancouver Island Diving
Cold Water Diving

Recreational Diving
In Protected Waters

Stephen Roper

For everyone's first scuba diving experience on Vancouver Island, I would suggest going to see Erin at Ogden’s Point Dive Shop and getting scuba diving gear to take a dive along the Ogden Point Breakwater.

It is absolutely worth diving here a few times.

Most of the year, there’s a ton of kelp growing along the entire length of the point.

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.

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 Vancouver Island 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.

To view the photographic edition of this story, go to http://www.oceansedge.com

[Steve Roper is a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer with multiple specialty certifications, including Underwater Naturalist, Photography, Advanced Navigation, Night, Deep and Drift Diving, Nitrox and Tri-Gas Mix. He has been scuba diving for well over 20 years.

His travels have taken him from Montreal throughout the entire Caribbean, both coasts of the United States, Vancouver Island, the Pacific Northwest, much of Central America and more recently, Fiji.

With well over 2,000 dives in his log book, Steve has the experience to comfortably introduce new divers into the aquatic realm. He has taught all ages ranging from 12 to 76, ranging in certifications from Open Water to Divemaster and works well with all, conveying his natural love for the water. http://www.oceansedge.com.]

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