Dive Review of
Abyssal Dive Charters/N/A in
Canada/British Columbia

California, Bonaire, Curacao, Indonesia, Philippines, Palau, Florida,
Mexico

Dive Conditions

Return with 500 psi  

Bucket on board for cameras.  

Overall Rating

We only had a couple of days to dive while we were in the Campbell River
area, so we went with Abyssal Dive Charters.  They promptly responded to
e-mails, and were willing to go out with only my wife and I as passengers. 
They were also kind enough to lend me a wetsuit at no charge since I did
not bring my drysuit to save luggage weight and space (my wife dove in her
drysuit).  Due to the strong currents in Discovery Passage, diving is only
done during the slack tide.  These are drift dives:  the boat follows your
bubbles and picks you up at the end of the dive.  They provide 80 cubic
foot aluminum cylinders and weights.  They did ask to see our C-cards, but
there was no safety briefing, and I had to request a dive site briefing. 
They seemed perfectly happy to let us jump off the boat without telling us
what to look for, which direction to go in, etc.  I also had to request
specifics on how they wanted us to dive from the boat, for example how to
exit the boat and how to re-board.  We found the water temperature to be
warmer than what we are used to in northern California, and the visibility
was quite good on a couple of the dives.  We could feel the current picking
up near the end of the last dives.  One dive site in particular was
stellar.  Copper Cliffs is a wall dive that was alive with nudibranchs,
anemones and other macro critters.  Some areas were covered with white
Metridium anemones, other areas had orange Metridium anemones, there were
Metridium senile anemones, and we found an area with very large northern
feather duster worms.  Large ling cods were not uncommon.  The other sites
were not as good.  A couple were actually rather poor, with muddy bottoms,
poor visibility and limited macro life, although we did manage to find a
couple of nudibranchs we hadn't seen before.  If you intend to dive with
this outfit, I would recommend doing your homework and present them with a
list of the sites you would like to dive, and then insist on them taking
you there. 

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