Nanaimo vs West Vancouver diving

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KlixTrio

Registered
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
Canada
# of dives
50 - 99
Hey all, I'm heading to BC for a wedding in May. Going to bring my gear for a weekend of diving afterward. My dive buddy is flying in and we will be sharing accommodations. I'm trying to decide what part of BC I should dive with only a few days. We were thinking Friday shore diving, Saturday and Sunday boat diving. A lot of people say diving in Nanaimo is better, but I cant find a comparison (Better viz? More stuff to see?).

The pros I'm outweighing are...
Horseshoe Bay:
No ferry saves money and time ($200 for 2 people)
The Annapolis...a nice easy shallow wreck

Nanaimo:
Accommodation is cheaper, $160 vs $220/night (Airbnb cheapest)
Better diving?

I guess my question is if you only had a few days where would you go? Thanks!
 
Nanaimo is probably the better diving, but if you do decide to stay on the mainland, Kevin and Jan at Sea Dragon Charters are wonderful and I'm sure you'll have a good time boat diving with them.
 
Nanaimo is the better diving. Viz is probably a wash. More variety in Nanaimo.
Thanks!
Nanaimo is probably the better diving, but if you do decide to stay on the mainland, Kevin and Jan at Sea Dragon Charters are wonderful and I'm sure you'll have a good time boat diving with them.
Sea dragon is who I was looking at if I chose horseshoe bay! Glad to hear more positive reviews.
I would go shore diving at Whytecliff on Friday, then take the ferry to Nanaimo for 2 days of boat diving.
I will look into that, maybe stay at the motel. Why pick one when you can do both!
 
Nanaimo is better diving because there are far more dive sites nearby and significantly more variety, from high current passes, kelp forests, walls and multiple artificial wrecks. There are multiple islands near Nanaimo that give lots of opportunities to dive in different environments with relatively short travel times. Vancouver is on a river delta so the only decent diving is north of Horseshoe Bay and while you can find pretty much all of the things you can find near Nanaimo diving out of Vancouver most are not "nearby". Vis is probably slightly better in Nanaimo, but in May likely will be poor in both locations - depends on weather and when the annual algae bloom starts. While there is much more variety in the Nanaimo area, you are only here for a weekend so that probably does not matter that much. You are going to see pretty much the same stuff in both locations in such a short time frame. In a weekend of diving you are not going to get tired of the dive spots that you can get to from shore and from a boat in Vancouver. If you come more often the diving out of Vancouver is limited so you will want to come to Vancouver Island which has some spectacular diving - Nanaimo is not anywhere near the best place on the island, but it is a good place to start and the better places require significantly more travel time to get to.

For the first time in BC and assuming your wedding is in Vancouver I would probably do Whytecliff on Friday and then do a couple days boat diving using Sea Dragon if they are going out and doing something you are interested in. Otherwise do Whytecliff and then go to Nanaimo for a couple days of boat diving. Whytecliff is a marine park used for dive training so it is a good place to start. Not a boring place to dive, just easy protected entries. If you plan to do multiple shore dives on Friday I would add Pourteau Cove which is a short drive up the highway towards Whistler. Also a marine park with lots of parking and some easy shore dives. Kelvin's Grove is another good dive site along that same highway, but parking is limited and a bit hard to find ... and those are the three best options for shore diving near Vancouver. There are some other options, but none of them are great IMHO.
 
Nanaimo is better diving because there are far more dive sites nearby and significantly more variety, from high current passes, kelp forests, walls and multiple artificial wrecks. There are multiple islands near Nanaimo that give lots of opportunities to dive in different environments with relatively short travel times. Vancouver is on a river delta so the only decent diving is north of Horseshoe Bay and while you can find pretty much all of the things you can find near Nanaimo diving out of Vancouver most are not "nearby". Vis is probably slightly better in Nanaimo, but in May likely will be poor in both locations - depends on weather and when the annual algae bloom starts. While there is much more variety in the Nanaimo area, you are only here for a weekend so that probably does not matter that much. You are going to see pretty much the same stuff in both locations in such a short time frame. In a weekend of diving you are not going to get tired of the dive spots that you can get to from shore and from a boat in Vancouver. If you come more often the diving out of Vancouver is limited so you will want to come to Vancouver Island which has some spectacular diving - Nanaimo is not anywhere near the best place on the island, but it is a good place to start and the better places require significantly more travel time to get to.
Actually the wedding is in Tofino. Flying in and out of Vancouver because flights are 6x more to Nanaimo. My family is going to fly out the same day my buddy arrives for our small diving trip. So I’ll be making two round trips on the ferry if I dive Nanaimo.

So from my understanding both have similar diving but Nanaimo more variety. I won’t get bored of Vancouver with how little time I got. I’ll definitely be looking up the dive sites you mentioned and maybe that will help make up my mind. Thanks for all the info!
 
Nanaimo is probably the better diving, but if you do decide to stay on the mainland, Kevin and Jan at Sea Dragon Charters are wonderful and I'm sure you'll have a good time boat diving with them.
Cannot recommend the sea dragon after their last accident - a prop strike backing into a diver in the water. Should never happen.
 
Cannot recommend the sea dragon after their last accident - a prop strike backing into a diver in the water. Should never happen.
Holy smokes!
 
Cannot recommend the sea dragon after their last accident - a prop strike backing into a diver in the water. Should never happen.
I had not heard about that. That definitely is a red flag and should never happen.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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