The Ontario Underwater Council (OUC) held a successful fund raising evening at the Ontario Science Centre earlier this month. Although the holiday season is normally a difficult time to get people to come out to Toronto dive events, but when the topic is Great White Sharks, there is always …

Divers encounter jelly with a bubbly personality Text and Photo by Trisha Stovel During a recent search for six gill sharks with Rendezvous Dive Adventures, I encountered one of my favourite critters: a fried egg jelly. In the end, we didn’t see any of the elusive sharks during our …

Previously featured in DIVER Volume 37 Issue 3, David Hall’s photography comes to Vancouver on August 24th. Photohaus Gallery is pleased to announce the opening debut of David Hall’s Beneath Cold Seas, a compelling collection of underwater photography shot entirely off the coast of British Columbia. This will be …

The Vancouver Aquarium’s lingcod egg mass survey brings together local divers for a fun citizen science project every year By Russell Clark For six weeks each winter divers across British Columbia unite to become part of a citizen science project that’s sponsored by the Vancouver Aquarium. The annual Lingcod …

Text and Photo by Amanda Marie Lovell In the Pacific Northwest basket stars can be found in high current areas clinging to hard and soft coral, sponges, rocks, and even to each other, like this one. These extraordinary creatures have five delicately spiraled arms that divide and branch out …

  Text and Photo by Andy Murch One of the favourite games played by adolescent Steller sea lions is ‘sneak up on the scuba diver’. This gang of juveniles materialized out of the blue and entertained me to no end before acrobatically scattering in all directions. For most of …

  By Andy Murch This was the most energetic and entertaining giant pacific octopus that I’ve encountered, and I’m chalking it up to youthful trial and error. Daytime GPO sightings are usually rather fleeting but this young animal was bouncing all over Race Rocks looking for the perfect spot …

  By Donnie Reid Before she sank in a storm October 14, 1901, the sternwheeler, A.J. Goddard, was a workhorse ferrying people and cargo along the Yukon River during the Klondike Gold Rush era of the late 1800s. Like many other craft designed to service the huge influx of people …

Lake Minnewanka has a rich history. There are recorded archaeological sites showing pre-contact occupations that cover an entire 10,000 year period. Artifacts have been found from the early, middle and late pre-contact periods. The Minnewanka site is one of a series of such early sites in the lower Bow …

Winter diving along Canada’s Pacific shore has its benefits and principal among them is the astonishingly clear water to be enjoyed much of the time by scuba enthusiasts up and down the length of the British Columbia coast. As temperatures cool and summer plankton blooms die off, underwater photographers …

Ablaze with what appears the reflection of a dazzling fireworks display, the eyes of a Red Irish Lord (Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus) add to the brilliant colouration of this striking species of sculpin. Its typically vivid coat can vary from hues of orange through red to magenta and into striking pinks …

Two hundred billion gallons of foaming seawater swirl through Sechelt Rapids on each turn of the tide in this constricted, islet-strewn passage on Canada’s Pacific coast. In the aerial view to the northwest, looking from Sechelt Inlet toward Jervis Inlet, a 13.5 knot ebb roars through the shallow gap. …

Every autumn sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) enter British Columbia’s Fraser River and battle their way hundreds of miles upstream to spawn in the big river’s countless tributaries.  Of these the Adams River run is arguably the best known.  A dominant run occurs every four years and after several dismal …

The Pacific white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus oblquidens) is among the most social and playful of marine mammals in British Columbia waters.  During autumn large numbers of them often move into the Johnstone Strait, off the northern coast of Vancouver Island, where they feed on large schools of herring and pilchards …

The Muskallonge or Muskie, as she is affectionately known in diving circles, is not so well known in her watery grave as she was in service on the Seaway. Then, she was touted as the largest tug on the Great Lakes. Built in 1896 at Port Huron, Michigan, she …

In the late 1970s I worked on a dive boat called the Oceaner.  Owners Gary Mallendar and Larry Mangotich, manufacture exposure suits under the Oceaner name and distribute dive gear such as the TUSA line, across Canada. Their vessel has been retired for their private use.  On several occasions …

A mid winter opportunity to dive Browning Pass in B.C.’s Queen Charlotte Strait delivered up cold February winds and rain… but when they abated and the sun came out we were treated to some of the best visibility I’d ever enjoyed in these remarkably fertile waters at the top of …

  Perfectly ‘synched’, these Pacific White-Sided Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus oblquidens) gracefully paced our boat as we motored across Blackfish Sound near Port McNeil on Vancouver Island’s rugged north coast. These playful and social marine mammals are a favorite in British Columbia’s Emerald Sea, and encounters such as this are among …

Genny Simard, interpreter at the Fundy Discovery Aquarium in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, holds Big Dee-Dee, a 22-pound (10kg) lobster (Homarus americanus) caught three years ago in the adjacent waters of the Bay of Fundy. A part of the Huntsman Marine Science Centre, the public aquarium is Canada’s newest …

Winter diving weather along the British Columbia coast is not infrequently overcast but when the sun peaks through the clouds up there in the sky, divers can be rewarded with the best visibility of the year. This photo was taken during such a winter’s day in Agamemnon Channel, which …

High Definition TV looks better all the time. Recently, a Red One camera in a Gates housing was used at Vancouver Film Studios to shoot an episode of Sanctuary, the technology’s underwater debut in a dramatic television series production. Text by Ian Seabrook – C.S.C.   Professional underwater cinematography …

It’s one of my favourite British Columbia dives. We tie up close to shore – really close in fact. The drop-off in Jervis Inlet is precipitous; a mere stone’s throw from the low-hanging trees the sounder registers depth at more than 400 feet (120m). Yet for a deep dive, …