The
area around Vancouver Island has become internationally
recognised as a premier diving destination.
The Jacques Cousteau Society has rated the waters here as
second only to the Red Sea for clarity, and for abundance
of marine life, and has named it ‘The Emerald Sea.’ This
is one of the few places in the world where divers can swim
with the elusive six-gill shark, or with the wolf eel, which
makes its home here, and where they can easily view the numerous
stunning gardens of colourful kelp, anemones and sponges.
In the
year 2000, Rodale’s Scuba Diving magazine
rated British Columbia the best place in North America to
dive, voting it Best for Fish Life, Best Destination Value,
and Best for Wall Diving. It also awarded second place to
B.C. for Best Advanced Diving.
Artificial reefs are an exciting addition to our available
adventures, with the recent sinkings of two Royal Canadian
Navy ships off Nanaimo. HMCS Saskatchewan is B.C.'s most
popular reef, with over 50,000 dives, and we now have HMCS
Cape Breton, which was sunk in Nanaimo in 2001. The Cape
Breton is the world's largest diver-prepared artificial reef.
There will soon be a third one, which will be a shallower
dive, designed as a training platform for wreck diving.
Winter is the best season for diving, because visibility
in our waters is best then, but summer is also a great time
to visit. During the summer there are opportunities to snorkel
with the seals in Nanaimo. At Campbell River, from early
July till late October, you can even snorkel with the salmon
while they migrate to their birth rivers to continue their
life cycle!
|
