Moving to Ottawa

[bs63366]

There is a chance that I will be moving up to Ottawa in the summer of next year. What types of diving are there in the area and is there a very big GUE presence in the area? Right now I am OW and will be AOW by the time I get there with nitrox as well. I am used to diving in 7mm with hood and gloves so the cold is not a real big problem. Looking forward to expanding my diving and living in Canada for a while.

Kyle

 

[cdndivefan]

Hi Kyle.

Local diving near Ottawa is quite good and fairly close. Kingston area has a number of great lake dives; whereas Brockville, Prescott, Rockport all are popular St. Lawrence River diving locations. Many of them with wrecks to explore > 100 years old.

There are many shore dives in the river itself, which makes it a convenient drive of about an hour to many sites for a dive on your schedule.

Closer to Ottawa itself, Morrison's Quarry is another popular dive spot, although technically you will need to obtain a FQAS certification for the quarry (FQAS Bienvenue).

A little searching on the web should uncover lots of info about local sites.

You might also want to look around at Ontario Diving

Good diving, and good skill researching.

 

[gitterdun]

Welcome, Kyle.

There is a very large GUE community over here. Let us know when and if you're coming over, and we can meet up with you!

 

[bs63366]

I will be starting to get a bit more active on this board. Still need to see that everything goes through to get out there. Sounds like there is a lot of diving close by. Is it dry suit most of the time or can you use a wet suit most of the year?

 

[bleeb]

In total numbers, wet suits are more common than dry suits here. For the majority, wet suit season is about four-five months long, although a few hardy souls push that much further, and some actually ice dive in them. A major limiter for wet suits is more the above-water temperature. Among those diving when the weather on the surface is cooler or doing longer duration technical or decompression dives dry suits seem more common.

A lot of the water around here is also frozen for about four months of the year. There are some popular ice diving locations. I haven't gone down that path myself (yet) but if you're not familiar with it, I think most people around here would require specialized training, fully redundant cold water gear and adequate surface support. (Free flows don't seem to be uncommon and there seems to be at least a few stories going around every year of people having parts of their suits frozen after climbing out of the water into colder air.)

 

[electric_diver]

Sounds like there is a lot of diving close by. Is it dry suit most of the time or can you use a wet suit most of the year?

It depends on where and when you dive and what your personal tolerance for cold is.
The lakes and quarries all have thermoclines and it will be mid 40s F water temperature below the thermocline.

However if you dive the St.Lawrence river in the late june to mid september timeframe the water temperature is in the high 60s to mid 70s F.

A drysuit will permit comfortable diving year round.

Contrary to gitterdun's comment GUE has a very small presence in Ottawa. There is one instructor that I know of and no shops. IIRC Kingston's NTD is the only GUE affliated shop in all of Ontario and that is a 2+ hour drive away. PADI and NAUI and TDI dominate the local scene.

 

[gitterdun]

Being a part of the GUE community up here, I can tell you that there are alot of us. The instructor is my husband, Steve Blanchard.

 

[bs63366]

If I do wind up there I will be in contact with your husband about getting in on a fundies course and some dives beforehand for practicing if he is willing.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Being a part of the GUE community up here, I can tell you that there are alot of us. The instructor is my husband, Steve Blanchard.

I think that if a person is not "part of that community", then it is never obvious where it is or how big it is. I can say that I would think there is but a small GUE contingent in my area but could very well be told otherwise.

Now, since you are part of the community AND married to an Instructor, I would say that puts you in a position to know .

 

[jjones9527]

Its all relative. Look at the world wide numbers of GUE divers and instructors relative to other agencies. Given those small numbers, the fact that there are probably 10-15 GUE divers ranging from an Instructor, Tech, Cave and Fundamentals is pretty significant in one area.