Centrally located on Vancouver Island’s eastern side, and a hub for incoming mainland sea and air traffic alike, Nanaimo is surrounded by reefs, wrecks, and colorful walls. Nearby Parksville is Canada’s retirement capital, and is both peaceful and picturesque. Half an hour north of Nanaimo, it features a number of excellent shore dives as well as a few dives which are accessed via boat. There are enough dive sites to keep residents busily exploring new areas, and more than enough to make for a fantastic diving holiday like none other. Let’s take a look at just five of the best sites the area has to offer.
Dolphin Beach
Located near Blueback Community Park just off Blueback Road, which leads right to the dive site, Dolphin Beach is a nice shore dive that features a fantastic wall, which one reaches after a swim along a series of gently sloping reefs where patches of colorful tunicates and clusters of lovely green kelp shelter greenlings and rockfish, along with quite a few moon jellyfish and some lingcod. The top of the wall begins at a depth of about 20 meters, and the deeper you go; if visibility is a bit poor in the shallower areas, it is likely to improve as you gain some depth. Boot sponges proliferate all over the wall, along with a few cloud sponges, holding a few more rockfish. The base of the wall is at depths between 30 and 40 meters, and if you’re lucky, you might encounter a six gill shark; they’re rarely seen but do appear from time to time.
Dodd’s Narrows
Featuring fantastic walls covered in lush anemones of all shapes and sizes, plus orange hydroids and hydrocorals, Dodd’s Narrows is one of the best dive sites in the area. Located about 15 minutes south of Nanaimo by boat, the passage lives up to its name, with some areas being only 75 meters across. While maximum depth here is just about 33 meters, most of the best features are in shallower water. Despite this, the current can be swift and boat traffic can be heavy.
Fish and invertebrates are abundant here, taking shelter in the many cracks and crevices that punctuate the walls. As you enjoy a splendid drift, you’ll find red Irish lords and other sculpin species, numerous rockfish, greenlings, and lingcod, not to mention crabs and other crustaceans, nudibranchs, and fantastic sea stars in a rainbow of colors. Be sure to visit with a reputable guide; this site can be very challenging, even for experienced divers. If the salmon are running, you’ll be treated to the sight of hunting sea lions, adding even more excitement to a fantastic dive.
Neck Point
Neck Point is a beautifully scenic park located north of Boundary Bay, with several beaches and a number of trails leading to the water. One of the best places to hop in and experience the underwater world at its finest is accessed via a little strand covered in pebbles; this is the “neck”, and it points straight toward a pair of rocks that look like little islands at high tide, but which you can see attached to the neck when the tide is out. To get here, you can either check in with the Nanaimo Parks authorities, who will give you a key that allows you to park closer to the water, or you can experience a ½ kilometer trek with a big hill in the middle that will give you a good workout before you even make it to the water. Once below the surface, visibility can be very poor, but will open up to sometimes amazing lengths between 20 and 30 meters as you descend. Along the bottom, a rocky slope with some heaps of boulders holds numerous sea stars, including plenty of beautiful purple ones, along with feather stars and zoanthids, all sorts of colorful sea anemones, orange and yellow sea pens, cup corals, and very interesting tubeworms. Golf ball crabs, hermit crabs, and other crustaceans are here in abundance.
The fish here are also excellent, with copper, yelloweye, and quillback rockfish in attendance, plenty of blackeye gobies, some little lingcod, kelp greenlings, red Irish lords, and even octopus hiding in rubble dens beneath piles of intricately shaped rocks bearing clusters of encrusting sponge and bright pink coralline algae. The amount of life at this little site is so incredible that you might find yourself using more than one tank on a single day; as maximum depth is 27 meters but there is plenty to see in shallower water, you might be able to do just that.
Jesse Island
An excellent dive for all levels, and very popular when other nearby sites are too rough to dive, Jesse Island can be accessed via boat; or, if you’ve got a sturdy constitution, you can take a public access trail from Stephenson Point Road the leads down to the shore across from the island, which is about 200 meters away, meaning a long surface swim in water that gets quite warm during the summer months. Made of sandstone, as many other Nanaimo area attractions are, Jesse Island features beautifully sculpted cliffs and overhangs, small pinnacles, and deep, mysterious cracks where crabs and octopus hide.
There are swimthroughs and caverns here too, and if you’re into underwater photography, you might have a hard time deciding what to photograph next. There are loads of purple sea stars, lots of colorful tubeworms, big red and yellow sun stars, and an almost unbelievable abundance of sea anemones in brilliant shades of orange and pink, not to mention plenty of fluffy white plumose anemones up to three feet tall. All this color creates a fantastic backdrop for schooling perch and painted greenlings, quillback rockfish and red Irish Lords, intricate looking sculpins, and lots of different kinds of crustaceans. There is a thermocline at about 13 meters, after which visibility opens up quite a bit. Beyond 20 meters, the amount of life decreases drastically. If you’ve done this as a shore dive, you’ll have to save some strength for the return trip; if you’ve taken a boat, you can enjoy a long, leisurely dive. It’s fantastic either way.
Madrona Point
A very popular shore dive located at the end of Madrona Drive in the Parksville area, Madrona Point is made up of sandstone ledges and little walls. In the shallows, you’ll find quite a few kelp greenlings, perch, and copper rockfish. Sometimes, you’ll even find octopus here, however some people hunt them and numbers have been dwindling. The wall portion of the dive is about 100 meters from shore, and maximum depth is about 30 meters at its bottom. Here, you’ll find tubesnouts, yelloweye rockfish and wolf eels, plumose anemones, sea whips, sea pens, and plenty of shrimp and nudibranchs. Visibility can vary here, making a big difference in the quality of the dive. When the plankton is blooming in the warmer months, you might be able to see only a few meters, but during late summer and into the cooler months, visibility can sometimes extend to about 20 meters or so. Playful sea lions visit at times, putting on a great show.
With plenty of topside attractions, a variety of different types of accommodations, and fantastic dining opportunities, these wonderful communities welcome divers and offer the perfect place for an enjoyable weekend or an even more extended Pacific Northwest diving holiday. No matter where you’re from, if you want to enjoy some wonderful cool water dives, this is an excellent place to do just that.