Back in 1997, during my open water scuba course (that I took when I lived in Vancouver), the instructors insisted that the diving around Vancouver "wasn't very good" and if you actually wanted to enjoy diving, you had to go to Vancouver Island or the Sunshine Coast. Since they were the experts, I believed them of course, but I still had a great time diving around the "day marker" and the "cut" at Whytecliff Park. My memories are vague now, but I remember the plumose anemone gardens, zoanthids, the occasional feather star, piles of seastars and rockfish hiding in the cracks on the wall. My maximum depth was usually less than 80 feet and I felt quite the daring rebel. There always seemed to be seals hanging around and they weren't shy. I would spend hours some weekends snorkeling near the right-hand point of the bay, where you could sometimes see seals sleeping underwater in some shallow mini-caves.
I haven't had a dive in the Vancouver area in over 10 years, but recently (Aug. 21, 2010) I was in town and I'd be buggered if I wasn't going to revisit one of my old underwater hangouts. The traffic in the city has definitely changed. It took me 2 hours to drive from Richmond to Whytecliff Park (and the same to get back). The park itself was also much busier than I remembered it. I don't remember many dive classes being taught here years ago (they all went to Porteau Cove), but this time I saw vans from a few dive shops and there were clusters of rental gear from classes on the beach. I swam out on the surface to the right-hand point (the "cut"). The water was almost uncomfortably warm. It was also nearly fresh-tasting in the surface layer. I descended at the point to piles of sunflower stars. Visibility was about 10 feet in the shallows and 30 feet below 20 feet deep. I swam down the sloping rock wall and saw more invertebrate life than I remembered. There were lots of feather stars, swimming anemones, crimson anemones, zoanthids and small green urchins. My maximum depth was 115 feet, which was deeper than I used to go here. There were several small-to-medium-sized cloud sponges and boot sponges. Other than the expected quillback and copper rockfish, lingcod and kelp greenlings, I saw a few canary rockfish and a black rockfish. A bit shallower, there was a crowded plumose anemone garden. I swam back up into the bay and surfaced almost under a swan. I started swimming back on the surface, thinking to myself what a great dive it was even though I didn't see my old seal buddies, when a seal popped up right next to me. I ducked back down underwater and took some pictures of the seal that was trying to drag a large lingcod head into the shallows. I walked back up the shoreline, used the convenient fresh-water rinse hose, bought a cold drink at the concession stand and thought "these local divers sure have it good". All you Vancouver divers that complain that all the good diving is somewhere else, you have no sympathy from me.
