I am a local Vancouver area diver and have frequented that site often, probably have dove around 30 times at that specific part of the site known as "the cut". There is not too much information being released at this point about what happened, nor do I know anything myself (although since our local dive community is so small, I wish I knew who the diver was at least!!!), until the coroner's investigation has been completed.
Anyhow, the site itself is mostly popular for more advanced divers due to the strenuous hike down (and then up after) the mountain to reach it and because of the quick access to depth from the beach. You swim out 40 ft and then you can drop to over 600 ft if you like along a vertical wall, with lovely dives both left and right of the cut in the rock. There is a sloping bottom from the entrance, as mentioned earlier in the thread, but yes it does get deep very quickly but if you are diving at that site, it is usually planned that way as the beauty of it begins at around 70 ft. and beyond (cloud sponges, etc.) get bigger and better the deeper you go (I've been to a max depth of just over 140ft myself but have seen video of deeper). Most recreational divers at this site dive to around 110 ft regularly and then slowly work their way up on nitrox tanks to extend their bottom time at depth.
There are nitrox stickers on the tanks in the picture, so whether it was a deep class with a special blend suitable for diving to 130 (I hope so) or whether the diver was deeper than planned (I hope not) on the usual 32 blend, we shall have to wait to see. We don't even know at this point if one of the tanks pictured in the article belong to the diver, so really... we just have to wait and see what comes out as it does. As for temperature of the water here, yeah most local divers wear drysuits, I'd say probably 90 - 95%.
As for the friends and family of the deceased diver, as well as the instructor and fellow dive buddies on that day, my thoughts and sympathy are with you.
