Coming to Victoria on vacation - week of Aug 18th

[onaholiday]

Hello,
I am coming to Victoria for vacation by way of Seattle and probably San Juan Island. I am an experienced diver (I mainly dive in Monterey Bay, CA) and would like to make a couple of dives up North while I'm there. I'm coming up August 18th and have a couple of questions:

1. If I can only dive one day during my vacation should it be while I'm staying on San Juan Island or when I get to Victoria? Basically, which has better diving?

2. What are the conditions this time of year? Vis.? Do they vary much from location to location (they sure do in Monterey Bay).

3. What are some good diveboats in the area (either San Juan or Victoria)?

4. Are there any good places to stay on San Juan Island

5 . Any chance that someone wants to go diving with me while I'm there (either Victoria or San Juan?

Thanks in advance,
Alex
alex@got.net

 

[etype]

onaholiday: Victoria has a much larger selection of dive options than San Juan Island, there are many types of excellent shore dives right in the center of town...for example the ogden point pier is just about downtown and surprisingly there is a lot of wildlife around the outer/deeper parts of the breakwater, it's a great dive and then stow your equip and then hit a cab and do your surface interval in a fine cafe or tearoom munching bagels or cucumber sandwiches. There is are two sunken Canadian destroyer class ship out there, two i think, one of them the hmsc mackenzie, artificial reefs, i can tell you they are challenging dives whether you penetrate the hulls or not and very well worth the time. Those are impressive dives you won't forget. Plus there are innumerable other dive spots around victoria, shoredives as well as chartered or not boat dives...far too many to list..scuba is very big in Victoria and Vancouver Island....you can't go wrong with diving in Victoria.

here is someones page <http://www.gravitystorm.ca/Album.Scuba/2002.02.12-VictoriaAdvScuba/>

but if you can get up island you've probably heard of the world class diving north of nanaimo...too many spots to list. But it's a divers paradise...the whole Georgia Strait is an inland ocean or saltwater sea with warm waters with unparalleled visibility filled with sealife and challenging and fascinating enviroments. Many, many experienced and knowledgable dive shops, divers and charter businesses. Whales too...paritcularly orcas and dolphins on the northern tip. You've probbly heard ad nauseum how it's one of the greatest dive spots in the world....Costeau saying only paralled by the red sea and so on...i'll vouch for that. It's hard to enumerate the endless list of juicy enviroments you find here, there's excellent diving everywhere, like my favorite wall only a a few hundred feet from where i live (which would take to long to describe).
I wish i could meet you somewhere and show you about...but the middle of the month is busy for me and i only have the evening where i will grab my gear and go for a underwater swim, then home and sleep.
Butwill answer any questions if i can..i've lived here and Victoria for many years and have dived in at least 90% of the strait of Juan de fuca, san juan and georgia right up to hectate passage in the charlottes.

 

[downtime2]

Hey Alex-
Both places have great diving, but if you need to choose, I would say definitely V.I. The diving on V.I. is world class. Nanaimo has some incredible diving. Like etype said, there are 2 artificial reefs in Nanaimo...The HMCS Saskatchewan and the HMcs Cape Breton. Both are boat dives, but they are only a 10-15 minute boat ride and with the exchange rate, they're relatively inexpensive.

As far as ops go, check these out:
Nanaimo
www.vidive.com
www.oceanexplorersdiving.com

San Juans
Lu Jac's Quest- (360) 202-0076 or (360) 202-0076
Island Dive- http://www.divesanjuan.com/

Lu Jac's runs out of Anacortes
Island Dive runs out of San Juan Island, both are good ops.

 

[onaholiday]

Thanks for the info. I'm about to leave for Seattle in a couple of hours and then from there off to Victoria. I think now I'll be going straight there and try to do all my diving there. Any word on what the the viz and other conditions have been like lately?
Thanks,
Alex