Location: Browning Pass & Shushartie Bay (Dillon Rock), Port Hardy, Queen Charlotte Strait, B.C.
Comments: Today could not have been any more of a classic scuba diving day in British Columbia. Dive #1 was at Hussar Point in Browning Pass, Dive #2 was on world famous Browning Wall (ranked as the number 1 dive site in North America 3 years in a row by Rodale’s), and Dive #3 was at Dillon Rock in Shushartie Bay. These dives illustrate perfectly why we are all ga-ga over diving in B.C.
The intense invertebrate life on Browning Wall is so thick and prolific and colourful that you cannot see the underlying rock at all. Until you’ve actually seen the brilliant reds, oranges, yellows, whites and all the amazing colours of the soft corals and other inverts, it is almost impossible to imagine how fantastic coldwater diving is. The tiny pinnacle of Dillon Rock is a story onto itself with 6+ wolfeels hiding in cracks and crevices, numerous giant pacific octopus, rarely sighted vermillion rockfish, a lovely kelp forest at the west side of the rock teeming with black rockfish, and dozens of chimera (ratfish in the shark family) cruising around on the sand bottom just off the rock. Great diving and a lovely day was had by all. Even the black bears cooperated with multiple beach appearances.
–Captain Mike
Weather: Overcast, rain sprinkles, calm seas and winds, temperature low 60’s.
Water: Water temperature 46°F, visibility at 15 feet (which doesn’t sound like much compared to Guadalupe or Socorro Islands but is more than enough to be able to enjoy the intense diving of British Columbia)
