Porteau Wall off limits to divers?

[Slamfire]

Yesterday (Sat Mar 28) two of my dive buddies and I went to Porteau with the intention of doing the Porteau Wall. As we were driving past the park ranger's booth, my buddy stopped to check in and report our intentions. The lady in there said that the camping portion of the park is only for campers, not divers. Bear in mind that at least in appearance the campgrounds seemed rather empty and she never mentioned that their space was maxed out.

She said the reason why divers are not allowed on the wall is because boats occasionally go there too and diver/boat interaction can be dangerous. Obviously she's oblivious to the fact that as divers more than often we have to share our waters with boats. In any case long story short, she would not allow us in. What's up with that!? Should we have just driven past the ranger's booth without stopping and revealing our intentions to "dangerously" dive in waters where a boat occasionally shows up? Wouldn't this type of reasoning also make entry and exits on the Porteau Cove boat launch "illegal" for divers? Wouldn't it also make diving under or close to the pier off-limits?

 

[TheWetRookie]

That sucks, the person must be new. What do they do over by the boat launch???

An option is to surface swim to it on the ocean side rather than going through the camp ground. I have done it before but I will say that walking it is much better. Or do not make your intentions known, just walk through. I have dove it a couple of times during busy season with no problems. We parked outside the campground and walked in.

A group of us got lucky one time and got to park our vehicles by the ranchers shack right opposite the wall, very nice.

 

[Slamfire]

None of us have ever done the Porteau Wall before. We've been waiting for months for the gate to the camping grounds to be open -- they padlocked the gates this winter and apparently only opened them at the beginning of March.

Since we have never been to the Wall, we were using Carl Trepanier's book, The Vancouver Diving Guide, as a reference as to where exactly this wall is located. From the book we understood that we had to basically drive all the way to the end of the camping grounds, almost 1 km from the pier (see image below). At least for us, this seems like a fairly long hike with equipment or surface swim. Are we looking for the wall in the wrong place? Is the wall actually closer to the pier?

We also thought about taking the highway exit just before the Porteau Cove park exit and driving to the Porteau Youth Camp. It seems that from their shores, the surface swim is only about 200 meters. We didn't try it, though, because the book said we should go through the main park entrance.

I'm thinking next time were just going to drive up without telling anyone.

 

[TheWetRookie]

I forgot about the gate at the ranger's booth, that would be a long hike from there. There is a second set of gates farther in. When main gates are open there is parking near the camp sites which makes it only a short walk, wait for the gates to open unless you are just out of the army and used to doing hikes with 80lb packs...lol

There should be parking at the bottom of the vertical words "Porteau Cove".

For the wall, if you look at the red thumbtack at the bottom of the map, round the bottom of the land to the right and just as you turn into the bay, the wall is there.

 

[Sintax604]

There's a wall at Porteau!??! Sheesh, nobody ever tells me anything!

Sorry to hear about your trouble getting in, hopefully that person is new (it IS the beginning of the season, afterall) and they'll learn quickly. Thanks for sharing info on the site, can't wait to check it out.

 

[TheWetRookie]

Wall goes to about 130 depending on tides, bottoms out to sand and junk

 

[Slamfire]

Thanks for the info. During the winter we were also contemplating by driving south along the dirt BC Rail service road that runs parallel to the railway, even though there is no gate there there is a big no trespassing sign. We've been really tempted to just go there, but we behaved telling ourselves the gates are opening soon.

I think it is sad that divers are denied access to an increasingly larger number of dive sites. For a while Kelvin Grove was closed to divers. At least now we can drive to Lions Bay Marina to buy parking permits. Smuggler's Cove in Bowen Island is no longer accessible to divers, etc.

 

[TheWetRookie]

pssst, photoshop

 

[Slamfire]

I hear you. :laughing: Even if it's just for sticking it to the man.

 

[Les]

anyone tried to dive the "new" wall at porteau bay? you know, the one caused by the rockslide last year and crews pushed debris over the edge into the water. should be some critters there by now.