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With the water glowing cool green on my left and a
tapestry of warm red, yellow and white blurring by
on my right, I descend and drift with the last of the
incoming tide. Memories come flooding back to me
— vivid images from dives past of fascinating critters
found here and favorite photographs created. Even
though I have dived this reef more than half a hundred
times over the years, I still expect to be amazed each
time.
Buttertart Reef
is layer upon layer of fish and
invertebrate life in artful disarray, all fins and scales and
tentacles, sublime colors and curious shapes. It’s Van
Gogh meets Picasso 75 feet under.
Countless dive sites along British Columbia’s
Vancouver Island similarly impress and inspire.
Drysuit-clad divers the world over trek to these cold,
current-swept waters off Canada’s west coast to kick
through kelp forests and over rocky reefs, meet Pacific
Northwest celebrities such as giant Pacific octopuses
and wolf-eels, explore shipwrecks and play with sea
lions. In a clamshell, this Emerald Sea offers some of the
finest temperate-water diving on the planet.
Scuba hotspots surround the 300-mile-long island.
From Port Hardy at the northern end to Victoria at
the southern, and from Barkley Sound on the western
flank to Nanaimo and Campbell River nestled along the
eastern edge, it’s all good.
PORT HARDY: PORTAL TO THE PASSAGE
Goodness overfloweth in Browning Passage, a legendary
waterway that cuts through the line of islands in front
of the fishing and timber town of Port Hardy. Both the
aforementioned Buttertart Reef (also known as “Rock of
Life”) and the famous
Browning Wall
dive site are in
the passage and resoundingly prove that cool water can
more than compete with the tropics for color. Plunging
vertical faces smothered by bright white plumose sea
anemones are highlighted with clumps of fiery raspberry
soft coral and mounds of yellow mustard sponge. China
rockfish peer out from crevices, and kelp greenlings
perch in glove sponges. Basket stars unfurl spidery arms
to snag passing planktonic meals, while Puget Sound
king crabs march up and down the saturated scenery.
From the surface to 80 feet, it is mind-bogglingly
beautiful, lush and alive.
Current is the lifeblood of Vancouver Island’s biological
machine; it’s responsible in large part for the island’s
incredible abundance of marine life. Besides providing
clean, nutrient-rich water and food for the creatures
of the reef, the current carries infinite waterborne
invertebrate larvae from afar that are keen to settle down.
For safety, divers should schedule submersions during
“slacks,” the periods between changes in current direction
when water movement is at a minimum.
With fair weather and good slacks in the forecast,
we venture out of the passage, northward into Queen
Charlotte Strait proper.
Hunt Rock
is a pinnacle
exposed to strong swell and formidable current; it’s not
always diveable, but favorable conditions allow us to
submerge and hover in a golden jungle of bull kelp amid
schools of black rockfish. Wolf-eels are the focus of our
tour along the boulder slope at
Fantasy Reef
. We count
five of the ugly-mugged yet undeniably charismatic fish
along with a dozen species of sea stars.
All the way across the strait on the mainland side is
a celebrated but rarely visited spot called
Nakwakto
Rapids
. Only a few times each year does the fickle
moon sufficiently release her pull on the tides to grant
access. Nakwakto boasts one of the world’s fastest tidal
currents (a blistering 14.5 knots on the ebb) as well as
giant gooseneck barnacles. Because of the turbulent,
super-oxygenated water, these rare, oversized red-lipped
crustaceans thrive here and grow in big mounds 35 to
55 feet deep. To see them you must time the tides with
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WINTER 2017
T E X T A ND P HO T O S
B Y BR A NDON CO L E
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THE EMERALD SEA
VANCOUVER ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA
I free fall diagonally
along the spectacular wall.