Browning Wall Cold-Water Colour, God's Pocket

Browning Pass, Queen Charlotte Strait, British Columbia · Canada

Challenging7 daysNorth America~£2,300 est.

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Overview

Nobody believes cold water can out-colour the tropics until they see Browning Wall: a sheer face in Queen Charlotte Strait carpeted edge to edge in crimson strawberry anemones, white plumose towers and basket stars, with not a bare inch of rock in fifty metres. Giant Pacific octopus den in the crevices, wolf eels lean out for a look, and Steller sea lions strafe your safety stop like torpedoes with attitude. Surface intervals come with humpbacks, and some weeks orcas. You stay at the God's Pocket wilderness lodge on Hurst Island or run boats out of Port Hardy at the top of Vancouver Island. Either way this is drysuit diving in 7-10°C water with genuine current, and slack-tide timing decides the day's schedule — your skipper's tide tables are the real itinerary. Get to Port Hardy by the five-hour drive up-island from Nanaimo or a short flight from Vancouver. Late summer into autumn brings the clearest water once the plankton blooms fade. A week at the lodge with boat dives runs about £2,300; bring your own undersuit and thick dry gloves.