Diving British Columbia - Quadra Island
Introduction
Like many, I did my first dive training in the warm waters of the Egyptian Red Sea. However, unlike some cold water quickly called me and I found I enjoyed UK diving immensely. So the viz wasn’t as good, and you had to wear enormous amounts of gear to cope with the cold water, but there was something about it.
The pleasure of finding a creature to hover and admire for a while was special in comparison to all those tropical fish that flirted shamelessly for one’s attention on tropical reefs. The variety of environments with seabeds made from the finest sand or the largest boulders, of crushed shells or mud or metres of thick silt, and of kelp forests with hidden promises within. Ah, yes, kelp forests- a particular favourite of mine. I could spend a whole dive poking around in the trailing blades or thick stems or kelp, stalking the beasties that use this amazing plant as home.
Then a friend told me of a place for a different diving holiday. It had cold water, giant kelp, fish very different from what we see around our shores and to top it all everything was “three times larger than here”. Surely this was too good to be true? Apparently not, the same friend also informed me that it was described by Jacque Cousteau as “the best cold-water diving in the world”.
That was it, I had to go. Luckily my partner and permanent dive buddy felt the same, and we persuaded another diving friend to join us and on this basis I set about planning our trip to British Columbia.
British Columbia is the most westerly province of Canada and stretches along the Pacific shore from the main US border to the Alaska-Canada border. It is a stunningly beautiful region stretching from mountains, through temperate rainforests down to the coast, and includes the Vancouver Island – a long, narrow island that is separated from the mainland by a strait of water. This strait itself is spilt time and time again by the smaller rocks and islands that cram into its northern reaches. It is this intricate geography that helps make the diving so special. Every time the tide changes the Pacific ocean has to try and force itself through the narrow gaps between the islands – the huge currents caused have two effects, the first being to sweep it clean and avoid the build-up of silt that can mar visibility, the second is to bring with it enormous amounts of nutrients.
These nutrients are used to support a diverse ecosystem, and the sheers mass allows even the lowliest anemones to grow to epic proportions. Until we reached the bottom on the first dive we had no real idea of just how impressive it would be.
Staying there
We had booked to stay with Mike and Darlene, the owners of Dive Dynamike, on Quadra Island. Mike has built, by hand, a log cabin in the woods just outside Quathiaski Cove and it is there that he and Darlene live, and accommodate visiting divers. The set-up is superb. Divers stay on the ground floor in twin rooms, with bunkbeds, which line the edge of a living area. This area contains sofas, tables for cameras and charging points, and most importantly a fantastic stove that burns wood pellets keeping it cosy and allowing undersuits to dry on rack in front of it.
Up a wide, open flight of stairs is Mike and Darlene’s home, and also the long dining table at which divers take all their meals. Three meals a day are provided whilst you stay at Dive Dynamike and Darlene prepares them all.
One of the real benefits of diving with Mike sits just outside the cabin, however. Up on an area of decking, and under a canopied roof from the “kit shed” is a large, constantly heated hot tub. It is bliss to sit in there, with a small drink, after a hard day of diving in the cold waters of BC and admire the pine forest, the starry sky and listen to the slightly spooky noises of all the big things that might live in the forest that surrounds the house. There are only occasionally bears on Quadra Island….
Diving Quadra
Of course the main feature, the big attraction, the thing that we travelled all that way for was not a log cabin or even a hot tub – it was the diving. This is done from a specially designed aluminium boat. It looks a little unusual and it wouldn’t last long in the UK, but for the relatively flat, if swift-moving, waters of the sound it is perfect. It has a chiselled bow to cut through any chop, and a flat rear dive deck for easy access and egress. Seats down each side open into lockers for overnight storage all kit except suits and cylinders. Of course, hoods and gloves came back up to get dried and warmed each day too!
All the dive sites are within about 40 minutes travel of Quathiaski and whilst most are scenic there is a “fake wreck”, HMCS Columbia, if you can’t go for a dive trip without metal. I am more than happy with the scenery and wildlife alone!
Our first dive there had us drop through cold clear waters to a rocky bottom, the only odd thing being that you had to assume it was rocky as all you could really see was metre upon metre of small, densely packed pink or red anemones. These are the famous strawberry anemones that attempt to smother anything that sits still for long enough in the waters of BC.
On closer inspection we noted the delicately pastel-painted chitons, completely unlike the drab brown ones I had seen previously on British dives. Moving through the thick stems of bull kelp that feature heavily on any dive in the area we dropped over a ridge and took a gentle drift along a boulder wall meeting some of the fishier residents for the first time. As BC lies in Pacific waters the life is very different to that seen around Europe, even though the environment is similar. Confusingly there are even fish with similar names, which are completely unrelated to their European sound-alike. One of these is the lingcod. This is a large member of the greenling family with a set of fearsome looking teeth and a beautiful mottling to their skin. The ones that we saw were usually around a metre long, and sit, propped up on their pectoral fins on rocks, seeming to wait for something unwary and tasty to pass. I don’t know if this is their method of hunting, but they certainly look the part.
The end of the dive had us find out why bull kelp was invented – it is nature’s shotline. Pick yourself a stalk and everyone has their very own upline and that is something very useful as the current picks up and you experience firsthand just why those anemones love it round there!
Each dive was slightly different and it is very hard to be bored. Particular favourites of mine included the dark walls of Copper Cliffs where we searched along cracks for candy-striped shrimp and the tiny, but unforgettable Grunt Sculpin. This little fish is only a couple of inches long and is really very ugly, but it has immense character and is well worth the eye-strain that trying to find one involves.
Whiskey Point and Steep Island gave us plumose anemones that stood a clear foot tall and resembled fancy hats. Steep Island was also where we finally got our eye in for king crabs. These crabs are enormous and brightly coloured in orange and blue and yet for several dives we must have passed right over them as when they lock-in and close their claws across the front of their body they seem to disappear against the rock. Once you get to see one though you realise they are everywhere!
Row and Be Damned is named for the fierce currents in the area but instead of current it means giant sea lemons, as long as your hand, to me. They sat there, plump and warty, one next to another, next to another. Running between them were decorator crabs, extravagantly cloaked in sponges and yet more anemones.
The Big Three
It would, of course, be churlish to write of a trip to British Columbia and not mention its three most famous, aquatic inhabitants. The salmon may think that they are up in that realm, and we did witness the salmon run when we were there, but for me they come a little down the list.
At number three we have the wolf eel. Uglier than sin, yet big in long-term monogamy (they tend to mate for life) the wolf eel has charisma in buckets. A nice balance of shy and curious wolf eels have been known to free swim around divers at popular sites, used to being fed. They are a little more reticent around Quadra and we were frantic on the last day having not found one all week. Mike dropped us in to a site where he knew an eel had been living earlier in the season and we followed his direction meticulously – but no eel. Slightly dejected we moved down along the shallow reef, and hopefully peered into cracks. As I looked into one, small vertical split in the rock I saw something move. I then saw what looked like a grey cabbage patch doll with very big teeth poke its face out, before drawing back in horror at what it saw staring back at it. I screamed through my reg for the other two to come over and we laid on the gravely bottom and waited. Out he came again and watched us from the safety of his hole, only about a foot protruding. In and out he would come, and then, as he withdrew and turned in his hole we saw a beige eel inside too – it was a marital home and a smaller, beige female was sat behind him. We must have spent a good ten to fifteen minutes just laying there, watching him, watching us, watching him. He would come out far enough to almost touch a gloved hand before withdrawing again as we just laid still. It was marvellous.
Taking a well deserved second place is the Giant Pacific Octopus – or GPO as it is more affectionately known. To find this elusive beastie we had to beg and cajole Mike to dive with us. As an ex-octopus hunter he was expert in seeking them out. We also had to dive an area that was a complete contrast to the other sites as it was sheltered from the current and had a fine, silty bottom.
Mike donned his antique-looking dive gear – faded red drysuit and no BC, before mooring up against a pontoon and jumping in. We followed him for a few minutes until he started to look under a boulder. He had already taught us to look out for piles of shells by holes, a good sign that octopus use the hole as shelter and sure enough, there was a small mound of broken shells littered in front of a scour under this boulder.
He then moved back and waved us to have a look. We could just see a tentacle barricading the hole. A bit of wafting of the silt in front of the hole by Mike aroused the curiosity of the cephalopod and he came out, slowly at first, feeling his way over Mike’s arm, and then suddenly flew up and wrapped himself around Mikes head. The body was over Mike’s face and eight huge tentacles snaked around the back of his head and over his shoulders, feeling around. After a short while, spent gently changing between orange and red the GPO moved slowly over the top of Mike’s head and moved down his back to straddle the cylinder. Again it paused, but all the time the tips of the tentacles were moving, testing things. I was slightly off to the side and rear of where Mike hovered and when the octopus finally took off it headed directly to me. I orientated myself to swim in the same direction and for three or four wonderful seconds we swam side by side. Stretched out in swimming position it was as long as I was – this means it was small by GPO standard! We watched it settle near another rock and then burrow under. We watched it for a while before happily leaving it alone and trundling off ourselves to admire the large, orange seapens and fat nudibranchs that were also vying for our attention.
So, what gets first place? Quite frankly when you have the memorable sight of forty of them, purposefully moving south through the sound, as one large group, but spilt into smaller, family units you cannot help but be bowled over by the resident orca. We had hoped to catch a glimpse of them, and kept our eyes peeled travelling from site to site, but had no luck. Then we surfaced from a mediocre dive, apart form a stunning white-lined dirona,
on HMCS Columbia and Mike asked the three of us if we wanted to go to the second dive, or if we wanted to see the whales. “Which whales?”, we replied and he nodded to the other side of the narrows, about ¼ mile away. There we could see plume after plume of spray as orca surfaced, breathed and moved on. The answer was obvious!
Mike moved his craft over the narrows and set a course to take us slightly ahead of the group and run parallel and straight with them. As they began to catch up with us we realised how many there were. Small family groups of four or five were popping up everywhere as they moved along, down the sound. Some families would surface close to the boat and then move away again. In that small vessel the dorsal fin of a mature male orca standing 6 ft high was some sight. Those that came up right alongside the boat and “blew” were said to have blessed us – apparently being drenched in orca spit is lucky! We stayed with them for ½ hour, just pottering on a steady course. They came to us, not vice versa and I was sure that we were not adding any stress to their journey.
There are two resident pods of orca around Vancouver Island, one in the north and one in the south. They feed on the salmon so prevalent in the waters around BC. The movement of the northern pod, south down the island was such a rare and striking occurrence that we were delighted to have seen it – and to review it when it was on the Canadian news broadcasts a few days later when we had gone back to Vancouver city.
Diving BC is a must-do if you are a fan of cold-water diving, a fan of underwater wildlife, or if you just fancy something a bit different and a little more challenging than another standard blue-water jaunt. We will certainly be returning, and next time I know we will be staying longer!
