Dive Review of Hornby Island Diving in
Canada/British Columbia

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Hornby Island Diving: "Friendly cold-water diving", Jun, 2019, by Paul Fitzpatrick, TX, US ( Sr. Reviewer 7 reports with 9 Helpful votes). Report 10970.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	This is a small, family diver operation. Rod and Amanda are very friendly and accommodating. When we were there in mid-June there were a total of 5-6 divers. The lodge is comfortable, but not fancy, with shared bathrooms upstairs and down. Meals are included and the food was abundant and outstanding. The dive schedule is a morning dive at 9 and an afternoon dive at 1:30 or 2. This allows everyone to warm up and relax between dives. There is also convenient shore diving for night dives. The boat rides were quite short, always less than 15 minutes. The boat is spacious and well-designed, with the best ladder I have seen. The lodge is on the water, so the walk to the boat takes about 5 minutes. Divers routinely put on their drysuits at the lodge and walk over. Gear is safely stored on the boat overnight. The lodge has great facilities for drying gear and a drying room inside for dry suit underwear. Nitrox is usually available, but the oxygen supply on the island was out while we were there; this was not a problem given the long surface intervals. Dives are not guided. However, each dive generally follows a wall or the coast, so it is is easy to navigate. The boat follows the divers and picks them up when they surface, so that the dive time is decided by the divers. In June the water at the surface was about 60 F, dropping to 52 F below 50 feet, so this is dry suit diving. The visibility was 10-20 feet near the surface, but increased to about 50 feet below 50 feet. We only had one dive with strong current as the tide was coming in. We did not go below 80 feet, but one pair of divers did go deeper. You decide your profile and dive time. The underwater terrain was typically a sloping wall dropping to over 100 feet. Often the wall had discrete ledges, so it did not feel that deep. The top of the wall varied between 30 and 15 feet, so safety stops could be done while still looking around. We stayed at 50-80 feet for our dives. The sea life was outstanding. Starfish, lingcod, anemones, greelings, crabs, sea squirts, sculpins, nudibranchs, scallops, abalone, brittle stars, sea pens, rocket fish in abundance. We saw a large octopus every day. We did not find the resident wolf eels. We will likely return. Visibility is supposed to be best in November.
Websites	Hornby Island Diving
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	throughout Caribbean, Galapagos, Hawaii, Indonesia
Closest Airport	Vancouver	Getting There	The drive from Vancouver requires a ferry to Vancouver Island, then two more short ferry rides
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, rainy	Seas	calm, currents
Water Temp	52-60°F / 11-16°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	10-50 Ft/ 3-15 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals	N/A	Tropical Fish	N/A
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	There is a camera room at the lodge but no one on the boat was using a camera.

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Dive Review of Hornby Island Diving in Canada/British Columbia

Hornby Island Diving: "Friendly cold-water diving", Jun, 2019,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Hornby Island Diving in
Canada/British Columbia