The Argonaut Wharf was built in the 1950's to ship iron ore from the Argonaut Iron Mine. That mine lasted only a few years (until 1957?). The wharf has since been used to load ore from the Myra Falls lead/zinc/gold/silver/copper mine. That mine was owned by various companies over the years, the most recent being Westmin Resources. Although I think the official name for the wharf is now the Westmin Resources Loading Facility, divers still call it by its original name. I don't know how much of the structure is original, but I think it's been upgraded over the years to accommodate larger ships. It's now the most popular (and one of the only) shore dives in the Campbell river area.
I dove here on Jan. 31, 2023. I came up to Campbell River for some diving since there were a few days of very low current exchanges in Discovery Pass, which would allow for some relatively-safe shore diving. I parked in a small gravel lot on Spit Rd. next to the wharf.
I walked out about half of the way along the beach and then swam the rest of the way to the wharf. It was one of those overcast winter days where the streetlights were still on in the middle of the day so even though I was diving at noon, it was too dark to see anything under the wharf without a light. As far as I could tell, visibility was a nice 40-50'. Some pilings seemed to be made out of concrete and others of wood and they were pretty bare near shore. As I swam down deeper, there was more invertebrate life on them. Some were covered with plumose anemones. There were also lots of painted anemones, cup corals and all kinds of small sponges, hydroids, tunicates, etc. when I looked up close. There were also lots of bare patches on the pilings which was surprising considering the strong currents here in Discovery Pass. I sort of expected the surfaces to be more coated with current-type invertebrates. I didn't see many fish at all. I saw 2 copper rockfish, a quillback rockfish and a couple of kelp greenlings. The most common fish seemed to be white-spotted greenlings. The sand at the base of the deepest pilings was 50'. The fallen cement/metal/wood hollow tubes under the wharf are supposed to be full of octopus, but I didn't see any.
There was one part of the dock that had what looked like a row of 3 cylinders hanging down. Near the bottom of these, I saw a few tiny, pink soft corals.
Despite the darkness, I thought this was a pretty good dive. It's probably the best "under a dock" dive that I know of in B.C. I still don't think that, for me, it's worth the 4-hour drive up here just to dive it, but for local divers or visiting divers that are here anyway, it's a good, easy-access local shore dive.
