Olivers Landing Furry Creek dive spot

[99north]

I went down to Oliver's landing at Furry creek today to check out the supposed dive spot that exists there.

There is a rather large parking lot not far from the beach and it appears to be for all parking not just residents and guests.

I see an Orange buoy about 90 feet from shore( lower Tide today),,,does anyone know any details about his dive, wall, current, depth hazards if any?

There appears to be a small cove north of the Buoy surrounded by big rock walls at the shoreline. I suspect that current is a major factor here..

Love to try this spot, if anyone has any recent info on this spot I'd really appreciate it

Thanks
99North

 

[sschlesi]

This site has a decent Howe Sound wall. Nearer the beach there are plenty of strewn boulders with octos hiding in the holes. As well as an area with bottles and other refuse from when this really was "Oliver's Landing". Other than the boulders, refuse dump (in the boulders too) and wall, the rest is just sand.

The first couple dives I did at this site we swam out to one of the white buoys and then swam till we reached 50' and followed the contour until we found the wall. It works but I don't really enjoy swimming along the sand.

My preferred method is the following.

When on the beach look north and notice a small rock outcropping that is about 200m from the beach, it is the point of land that juts out furthest into the water before the little bay to the north starts.

Swim to this point and descend about 30ft from shore (the wall is deceptively close to shore). Descend to sixty feet. If you hit the bottom before sixty feet, swim west (away from shore) until you find the wall. If you reach sixty feet you are already west of the wall, swim east (toward shore) until you reach the wall.

We usually spend about 15 minutes following the wall north before turning and swimming all the way back to the beach. When you near the beach the bottom gets fairly flat and rock strewn, watch for Octos and keep heading a little east of south to reach the beach, or swim right up near the shore where you will find many old bottles, shoes, broken china etc.

I've never experienced significant current here. The life is not typical of big current areas, and there is a fair amount of silt around so I don't think current is much different than what Porteau experiences.

On one dive we swam to a buoy and then followed the contour at about 80', it seemed that we eventually found a deeper section of the wall that we followed along at near 100'. My guess is that if you were to follow the sand down below the wall described above there is another deeper section of wall starting a little further north. On our return in 50' of water we passed the start of the wall that I described above. I've only been on that deeper section once, so if you go looking and don't find anything don't be surprised. I may merely have been narc'd and disoriented.

 

[99north]

Thanks for the info..
I saw the jut of rock your talking about,,its before the cove,,there are tons of Big Boulders on the beach....is the sea life similar to Porteau?

 

[Slamfire]

For a sample of what you see in that site go here. It is an 25 image album of a dive we did in 2009. If you're into antique bottle collections, the bottle depot can yield some interesting discoveries. I brought back a 1932 "Libby's Catsup" from Libby's Canada.

 

[sschlesi]

Thanks for the info..
I saw the jut of rock your talking about,,its before the cove,,there are tons of Big Boulders on the beach....is the sea life similar to Porteau?

The shallow boulder area is pretty similar to what you would find at Porteau. With more hiding spots for Octos. Also I regularly find Umbrella crabs here, but only once in many more dives at Porteau.

The wall is like the wall on the islet at Whytecliff.