Diver Reputation in Victoria (and area) and Vancouver

[Scuba_Noob]

Do you think divers have a good reputation to non-divers in Victoria and Vancouver?

I mean some divers are often loud (with the release of air from our tanks and regs, as well as our voices), divers crowd certain sites, and some divers scatter their gear everywhere while gearing up/down, which is visually unappealing.

I've never had a bad experience with non-divers while diving. Everyone's always been courteous and interested. People often ask what it's like and what I see. It's a great conversation starter too. So all my experiences have been positive (on the surface, at least).

Just interested to see if people have ever had negative experience with the populace.

 

[willabonger]

just dirty looks for smoking cigarettes and pumping music in the park.. but thats the kind of behavior people frown upon either way scuba divers or not...

 

[Doomnova]

Pretty much the same as you Scuba_noob. Mind you I go to u of vic and converse mostly with students and many are quite interested albeit and understandably nervous. So i try to calm their fears enough to at least consider taking a DSD and to hopefully continue on as its a shame with where we live not to dive. Hell once i get a car out here plus a couple of tanks pretty much every weekend you will not find me dry at least one day.

 

[Roko]

I don't think I've ever had any negative experiences in Vancouver due to being a diver, usually people are nice, even everyone I've met at the notorious Kelvin Grove. (In fact, I must say everyone I've met at Kelvin Grove has been really nice!) Although I usually have a big smile when I'm diving, perhaps that helps. Lots of people stop with questions.

Once someone expressed concern about a less-known site becoming a popular/busy dive site, since it's not set up for it, but again that was during a positive conversation about diving, and wasn't a NIMBY complaint.

I do always get a chuckle at Whytecliff, however, while walking back to my car after a dive with all my gear on, and before I even have a chance to drop my gear someone looking for parking pulls up and asks "are you leaving soon?". Perhaps one day I'll get straight into the Jeep with everything on and drive away.....

 

[Scuba_Noob]

I mostly asked because there are signs at many dive sites that indicate that there may have been problems in the past with non-residents. By signs, I mean literal signs - for example, at Henderson Point, Ten Mile Point, Spring Bay, and a few other Victoria dive sites, there are somewhat new signs that limit parking between certain hours. At Ogden Point, the old free customer spots now have explicit signs that say that the free parking is just for restaurant customers, leaving only the pay parking for divers.

At Kelvin Grove in Vancouver, there are also signs about no changing in the parking lot and signs for residential parking (even though almost no residents ever park there and it's a huge parking lot). This leaves a scant few spots for divers.

Then again, it's likely that most of these issues happened well into the past, as none of us have experienced this. Also, maybe some of these have nothing to do with diving. I'm a relatively new diver here, but hopefully no negative dive-related issues with non-divers ever arise.

 

[tengsr]

The last 2 times I was at Ogden point I think I put a Dollar in the machine, definitely less than I'd complain about...