Depends on what kind of diving you want to do. If you've limited time, I'd recommend heading off to Nanaimo. You can do wrecks, reefs, walls, or pinnacles. Vis is usually pretty good this time of year, and there's lots of critters to gawk at.
Lots of available info on Nanaimo on this forum ... just do a standard search and read up on it. It's an easy ferry ride from either Horseshoe Bay or Tsawassan to get there.
Over on the Vancouver (city) side, there's several good dive sites around Bowyer Island and other good local dives in Howe Sound. Contact BC Dive Adventures (
www.bcdive.com) ... they've got a nice, small boat that services that area for a reasonable price.
If shore diving's more your fancy, head north on the Sea to Sky Highway toward Squamish ... to Porteau Cove. There's a nice dive park there with several sunken structures and a lot of marine life. Be prepared to deal with a moderate surface swim and some helioclines that make the top 15 feet or so like swimming in Italian dressing ... but once under that the vis usually opens up nicely.
Victoria offers a nice dive on the Ogden Point Breakwater ... in fact, if conditions are good you can probably get in two or three dives to cover the entire thing. Here though, be prepared to either swim all the way into the beach to end the dive, or hump your gear up and over huge blocks of granite getting out of the water. The diving itself is very good though. There are also some nice charters out of Victoria to several excellent dive sites, including Race Rocks and a couple of sunken ships. Check with the Ogden Point Dive Centre (
http://www.divevictoria.com/) for details.
That should be enough to get you started ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
