Thanksgiving in Nanaimo

[mancub]

Returned last night from a long four day weekend in Nanaimo. It was my first time there, and it was wonderful diving. Went with four semi-regular dive buddies, and we dove with Sundown. Ed was very great, and made our experience a positive one.

Friday we dove the Saskatchewan and Cape Breton. I had never dove around a wreck as large as either, and it was quite awe inspiring to poke around the exterior (none of us are wreck trained for penetration). I love floating off the main deck and looking up and down the sides as well as looking up and seeing our boat on the buoy. Great vis!

Saturday we hopped on the boat again and dove Snake Island Wall and the Rivtow Lion artificial reef. I was so distracted on the wall that I only took one or two pictures, then continued to just take in the sights. Pretty cool rock formations and life clinging on. Loved seeing the sponges and can't remember the specific name, but the fern-like ones that move around. The Rivtow might have been my favorite of the wrecks, although much smaller. We liked it because (single-tank divers) we circumnavigated the hull as well as the main deck multiple times. Fun to see the big prop too.
In the afternoon we drove north and did a shore dive at Tyee Cove. A nice shallow rocky reef with pacific king crab, giant pacific octos, tons of rockfish, some ling, massive sun stars (making ours look small), and a funny rocking horse toy suspended on a line midwater. That was interesting.

Sunday we dove the Saskatchewan again, but swam toward the bow, rather than our previous stern exploration. Again, something fun about sitting off the bow looking at the massive ship creeping out of the green. We proceeded to do another shore dive, this time at Wall Beach. Great site! A gentle slope with a small rock ledge then falling off to lots of rocks and boulders strewn about. Saw three big wolfies, a sizable GPO, literally 25 or 30 ling, and lots of annoying jellies in the shallows.

On Monday we made an early crossing, then dove at Whytecliff Park. The slack was perfect, but lots of wind and surge made the dive a bit unpleasant. Bad vis and too much finning limited us to one shore dive on the way home.

I definitely echo John in saying that Nanaimo has great diving and a reasonable commute.
-Jacob

[John Rawlings]

Cool! I'm glad that you guys had a great trip! More NWDC members should buzz up to Nanaimo to dive - it really isn't that far.

I'm also glad that you didn't get clobbered by the weather like Josh and I did!

- John

[spatman]

nice write up, jacob! i know that distracted feeling, too. i felt the same when i was is tahsis. so much to look at, i often forgot that i was carrying a camera...

[pogiguy05]

I keep hearing of the great diving and it makes me look at the 2 day 2 tank diving certificate with "Dive Choice Charters" I won at the dive a thon this year. I am sure that most of you would have used it by now. Just hard for me to get that many days to go.

[John Rawlings]

I keep hearing of the great diving and it makes me look at the 2 day 2 tank diving certificate with "Dive Choice Charters" I won at the dive a thon this year. I am sure that most of you would have used it by now. Just hard for me to get that many days to go.

Divers Choice is an excellent charter business. If you can, do what Josh and I did and take an extended weekend - Friday to Monday - and dive on Saturday/Sunday. Vis is astonishingly good up there in the Winter IF the weather cooperates!

[sheahanmcculla]

Great report, but no pictures?