Seymour Inlet, 1999
Author: Fred H

Just back from Seymour Inlet, BC - it was fantastic. This is on the mainland of BC about even with the north end of Vancouver Island.

We stayed at Seymour Inlet Lodge. This is a small floating lodge consisting of 4 guest cabins (sleeping 3 - 4 people each), a couple of staff cabins and the cook house. You take a float plane or water taxi from Port Hardy over to this secluded location. Besides the great staff and food there are nice touches like electricity to plug in all your rechargeable batteries, unlimited hot water, modern plumbing, comfy beds and great views.

We took the ferry from Vancouver to Nanaimo and the drove to Port Hardy (it's a long drive). We caught a Grumin Goose floatplane from the Port Hardy airport over to the lodge about 20 - 30 minutes. The plane trip was almost too short as there was so much to look at as we flew over the small islands and waterways. A big splash announced our arrival at the lodge where we were met by Chris and Carrie.

The diving was unbelievable. Probably the best diving I have done (comparing to the Great Barrier Reef, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands). I was completely blown away by the life and colours there. I didn't think there could be so much life in the cold waters. This area has some of the fastest salt-water currents (and rapids) in the world, which brings in all sorts of nutrients to feed everything there. There were huge Puget Sound King Crabs, innumerable sculpins, war bonnets, Irish lords, wolf eels, anemones, spongesm, corals … We were doing 2 - 3 dives a day.

Chris was operating the boat taking us to the dive sites. You couldn't ask for a better guide. With the currents as strong as they were you need very accurate timing to not get caught in anything too strong. Chris pretty much had it down to the minute when the current would be strong enough that we would need to be starting our safety stops - almost like Zen and the art of tide reading. Basically everything we did was a drift dive, with some thrillingly fast moments. No matter where we came up it seemed that Chris would have the boat along side of us within a minute or two. Although there are a lot of technical current dives there are also plenty of easy slow/no current dives that can be done there too.

Carrie took care of the cooking and did a superb job of it. The food was great and there was no shortage of it. Meal times revolved around our diving (which revolved around the tides) and were open to negotiation from before or after the dive. She even managed to deal with my vegetarian diet that she wasn't told about until I got there.

Other than diving we did some hiking, kayaking, dolphin watching (some of our group donned their dry suits and went snorkeling while the dolphins played in the boat wake), and something called being flushed through the toilet. The flush is floating between two islands when the tide is running (ver fast!), think of a water slide through a narrow channel. We didn't see any Orcas or Grey whales, but are often near by.

All around it was a great trip and I am looking forward to going back really soon.

Checkout www.scubabc.com for their web page.

Last edited on June 29, 2002