Beachcomber Regional Park

by Tom Hlavac
(Nanaimo)

There is a lot of exploring to be enjoyed diving from the pebble beach at Beachcomber Regional Park. Swimming from the beach, once you pass through an eelgrass bed keep slightly right till you hit the edge, go down to 30 or 35 feet and swing right. After 4 to 5 mins you will see the "shallow" wall. This has deep crevices, an overhang, boulders, and quite a few rockfish (quillback, china, black), kelp greenlings, ling cod and many smaller fish. Lots of invertebrates too. This is a great dive for an experienced open water/advanced open water diver. If you are good managing your air (note I didn't say Nitrox), keep going along the broken rock at the 40 - 50 foot contour. Another few minutes you will see rounded bedrock and the start of a stepped wall. This wall starts at advanced open water depths, and the upper levels have many crevices, boulders, etc - nice underwater landscapes. After app 14 minutes from the beach, you will be at the top of a very deep and steep wall. At 130 you can't see the bottom. Ling cod, yellowtail, black and yelloweye rockfish. Some tigers also, look for possible wolf eels and octopus around when you see tigers.