Relatively New Diver from Vancouver!

[Ola C.]

I recently moved to the greater vancouver area in Canada! (Just finished school and am starting my first job this month!)

I started diving about 3 years ago and only have logged about 30 dives, although they have been all over, starting in Egypt and Poland, Florida, Sydney Australia, and one day dive in Port Moody in Vancouver. I only own a dive computer and no other gear.

Now that I live so close to some good diving, I was wondering if anyone knew any local dive clubs to meet with some people, potentially look into buying some gear. I know someone mentioned that sometimes clubs have free dive days, or some group events.....I know things are a bit different now with covid, but as things open up, it'll be good to know what to look out for!

Thanks so much and I look forward to meeting y'all!!

Ola

 

[chillyinCanada]

Welcome to Scubaboard. We're very pleased to have you join us. We have a number of menbers from Western Canada and hopefully one or more will be along soon to answer some of your questions.

In the meantime, you may also want to visit this area of the board and perhaps post your questions there too:

Western Canada

 

[TMHeimer]

Welcome from the other end of Canada. I hear the diving is quite good on the West Coast. Our water temp. just warmed up to 16C, maybe even a bit warmer than your area at this point. But here it drops at times near freezing in winter.

 

[annasea]

There's a BC Divers Buy, Sell and Trade group on FB that you can check out for gear. They seem to be a small group that tends to know each other, so likely safe(ish). Also, a quick search in FB Marketplace for "scuba" turned up all kinds of gear.

Are there any dive shops left in the lower mainland?? Maybe the Dive Locker in Kits and the one in Burnaby whose name escapes me. Also, I think there might still be one on Arbutus near W Broadway that's been in business for quite some time. You can try these for dive days, also I know UBC has something to do with diving, but maybe just for students.

Good luck in your search for buddies and gear!

 

[chillyinCanada]

You might also want to run your choices by this subforum too before laying out the big bucks:

Diving Into New Gear

 

[Ola C.]

Awesome thanks so much!! I'm going to go and check that FB page as well!

 

[Darnold9999]

For dive shops - Ocean Quest in Burnaby. Been a few years since I have lived in Vancouver but I do know Ocean Quest is still a great shop. Deirdre and Greg run a very friendly shop.