A New Look at Southern Vancouver Island
This past August my 13 year old granddaughter, Allie, joined me on a Southern Vancouver Island journey to check out the area’s activities and diving. Allie is Jen’s daughter, and as adventurous as her mother, as I soon found out.
Our first stop was at the new Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre in Sidney. The facility was completed in June of 2009 and houses 87 tons of seawater in 17 aquarium habitats. Critters representing marine life found in the Salish Sea are displayed here, including a huge giant Pacific octopus. Like her mother, Allie has been exposed to the aquatic environment since birth and has picked up bits of info everywhere. What she didn’t know she read about on the aquarium’s numerous interpretive signs. www.oceandiscovery.ca
Sharing the same parking lot with the Sidney Dive Centre, owned and operated by Lee Burton and Laura Frelick, both active divers for over five years. The dive shop shared a building with a coffee/food shop, gift shop and a kayak business. I was invited to join Lee for a dive in Saanich Inlet and Laura helped to arrange a whale watching tour for us with Sea Quest Adventures. The Dive Centre offered retail sales, air fills, rentals and day charter around Sidney, Active Pass and Saanich Inlet.
Two of my favorite wreck dives in the Sidney area are the GB Church and the retired military vessel HMCS Mackenzie. The 175-foot freighter GB Church sits upright in 65-99 feet of water on the east side of Portland Island. Scuttled in 1991 the vessel is covered in marine growth. Lingcod egg masses are seen throughout the decks annually and octopus are commonly found under the hull on the bottom. A diver can easily swim the length of the ship and have time to check out the propeller. Watch for nudibranchs and other colorful invertebrates along the top deck around the railing.
The 366-foot Mackenzie was scuttled in 1995 and rests upright in 50-105 feet of water off Rum Island. On almost every dive here I have experienced strong currents, causing us to seek slack current times (when the water stops to change direction) to dive. As with the Nanaimo reefs of steel, the Mackenzie is full of critters, except these tend to thrive in current dependant areas.
After our half-day whale watching excursion with a few dozen orcas, Allie and I decided to give ziplining a try. Talk about exciting! We signed up with Adrena Line to traverse the treetops over 100 lush acres of diverse temperate rainforest over Sooke. This may have been our first ziplining experience, but Allie had it down in nothing flat. We each wore helmets and a harness with huge clips. After a sample run, they had us hooking onto different zip line trails, extending in length with each new run. Before long Allie had tried every skill the guides suggested, invented a few of her own moves and decided she wanted to work as a zipline guide when she graduated from school.
Our accommodations were at Miraloma on the Cove, a wonderful waterfront resort with comfortable rooms and a morning breakfast buffet. Our room was equipped with a full kitchen, washer & dryer, a whirlpool tub and free Internet connection! Needless to say, we were both in heaven. Before heading to Victoria I joined Lee for a dive at Senanus Island, in Saanich Inlet. Laura came along to help topside and Mike, owner of Seaquest Adventures, provided the boat. As a diver himself for over ten years, Mike explained he also offers kayak rentals in Sidney and guided paddling tours. In an effort to learn more about southern Vancouver Island’s local divers and what was happening in the industry here, Allie and I met up with Burt Minter, who organized Sunday Divers, a dive club with members all over the island. We joined Burt at one of his restaurants in Sidney - Fish on Fifth. Another of Burt’s many involvements are placing over 600 of the man-made reef balls underwater, around Sidney and Victoria. I must say however, Allie and I really enjoyed the food served at Fish on Fifth. The yam fries and chipotle mayonnaise were delicious and Allie really liked the deep fried macaroni and Mars Bars! After a visit to the Royal BC Museum and a film at the National Geographic IMAX Theater in Victoria, we headed for the Ogden Point Breakwater. Several groups of divers were at various stages of getting their gear ready for shore diving. Divers were coming and going at several entry sites within the cove and Ogden Point Dive Centre. When asked how the diving was, we heard replies like;
“Awesome, great visibility and so many fish to see!”
“Outstanding. We loved the wolf eels the best.”
It’s an easy, close shore dive and afterwards we can have lunch at the café above the dive shop.”
Before catching our ferry back to the mainland, we did just that with a yummy espresso drink and a salad from the Ogden Point Café. During our fun journey I learned Saanich Inlet, the Sidney area and the Victoria areas are all big enough to warrant allocated time for each location. Lee and Laura showed me where wrecks were and pointed out other sponge sites, Mike with Seaquest told us where the best paddling spots were and the Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre gave us an idea of what critters we might come across. So perhaps on a return trip with Allie, she might join me for a dive or two, that is - after she has finished her zipline job for the day! ■ Travel Information:
Lee and I entered the cool clear water and headed for the reef where beautiful white clusters of cloud sponge flourished. Along the way we swam over feather stars (crinoids), sea cucumbers and a collection of sea stars. White plumose anemones, orange and white striped swimming anemones and a few pink crimson anemones too. Aside from the usual lingcod and quillback rockfish, I noticed copper and tiger rockfish, several sculpins and cabezons.
We took our time at the sponges to locate the little crabs and juvenile rockfish hiding inside the sponge openings. Around 80 feet the clusters were larger. Their unusual shapes photographed well. This non-current site turned out to be a great dive, suitable for any naturalist.
“The club has about 170 members,” informed Burt, “Every Sunday a bunch of us will get together for a dive somewhere or to put out reef balls. We already have 120 reef balls in the Ogden Point area.”
“Each reef ball weighs around 400 pounds and is 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide,” continues Burt. “We believe each ball produces about 500 pounds of marine biomass.”
Divers can find out more information about reef balls at
Activities
Ogden Point Dive Centre
www.divevictoria.com
1-888-701-1177
For information on these and other amazing dive spots,
visit our website!
www.nwdivenews.com
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