Scuba diving Canada

12/17/2025

🇨🇦 DIVER FEATURE | OISIN DEERY
Cold Water • Wrecks • Exploration

Some divers chase warm water. Others chase history, challenge, and dives that demand planning, precision, and grit.
Today we’re proud to feature Oisin Deery — a diver whose journey spans Ireland, Australia, and Canada, and whose passion for cold-water wreck diving runs deep. 🌊⚓️

Oisin’s connection to the water began growing up in Ireland in the 1980s — open-water swimming races, sailing, boating, and endless time in the sea. The dream of scuba diving started early, but it wasn’t until 2018, while living in Melbourne, Australia, that he finally tried diving. One dive was all it took.

After moving to Toronto, Oisin and his wife Katherine committed to making diving a permanent part of their lives. Since then, his experience has grown into serious technical territory, with hundreds of wreck dives and decompression dives completed. He’s trained across multiple technical agencies, is a PADI Divemaster, has worked as one in Tobermory, and is also a cave diver.

📸 Photography has been part of Oisin’s life since the mid-1980s, starting with manual SLR cameras. While diving gear has taken priority, he embraces the creative challenge of shooting exclusively on a GoPro Hero 12, proving that vision matters more than gear.

⚓️ Standout dives include:
• Historic Great Lakes wrecks discovered only in 2018
• A true expedition scooter dive in 7°C / 47°F water, lasting 3 hours and 14 minutes
• Long exploratory dives through coral caves on a remote seamount in the Coral Sea

🧊 Advice for new cold-water divers:
Get good gear. Cold in Canada is different. Invest in proper exposure protection, real cold-water regulators, and build experience slowly. These environments are incredible — but they demand respect.

👇 Follow Oisin’s work:
📸 .diving.photography

💬 Would you dive Canadian cold water?
💾 Save this feature if wrecks and tech diving inspire you
🤿 Follow for more diver stories coast to coast

12/16/2025

🇨🇦🌊 DIVER SPOTLIGHT — JILL TAYLOR 🌊🇨🇦

Today we’re proud to highlight Jill Taylor — a cold-water diver, wildlife scientist, and underwater storyteller proving that some of Canada’s most incredible diving happens close to home.

Growing up beside the ocean in Nova Scotia, Jill always loved the water — swimming, beach days, and photographing birds and flowers. While completing her undergraduate biology degree at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, she discovered that cold-water scuba diving was even a thing — and she was hooked.

After certification, documenting dives quickly became one of her favourite hobbies. Four years of shooting underwater, completing her MSc. in Newfoundland, and sharing science-based marine biodiversity content led her to become a PADI Ambassadiver — and eventually to her own TV show Dive Newfoundland with Jill Taylor, airing on Bell Fibe TV and produced by Right There Productions.

Today, Jill researches Atlantic puffins, works as a science communicator, and creates powerful underwater video content. 🐧📸

📍 Favourite Dive Site
Gadd’s Wall in Bonne Bay fjord, NL — an underwater cliff completely covered in life: plumose anemones, winter skate, lobster, cunner, wolffish, ocean pout, pink rhodoliths, red soft coral, sponges, and nudibranchs.

❄️ Cold Water Commitment
What started as scuba has turned into spending every free moment in the ocean — all 12 months of the year, including snorkelling through winter. A camera makes the cold disappear.

🌎 Dive Dream
Port Hardy, BC. Madrona Point is where Jill saw her first giant Pacific octopus — and she’s hoping for many more. 🐙

💡 Advice
Cold-to-warm diving is easier than warm-to-cold. If you can get certified in Canada — do it.

📲 Follow Jill: | .dives
🌐 jilltaylor.org

👇 Would you dive Gadd’s Wall? 🇨🇦

12/11/2025

Can’t wait for this trip if you want in let me know. It’s going to be awesome!

Next Adventure: Bonaire in November 2026 🌴
Shantara Dive Service is heading back underwater, and this time we’re island-bound for the third week of November 2026!

Bonaire is known for warm water, effortless shore diving, and reefs that look like they’ve been painted in technicolor. Think: turtles gliding by, gentle currents, and coral gardens in every direction. A perfect mix of adventure + ease.

Whether you’re looking to log more dives, build confidence, or simply float in turquoise quiet, this trip is designed to meet you where you’re at.

What to expect:
• Calm, clear water and beginner-friendly entries
• Shore dives + optional guided dives
• Small-group vibe — supportive, relaxed, and fun
• Space to reset, breathe, and reconnect with yourself

If Bonaire has been on your list (or if you’re ready for a repeat), this is your sign to plan ahead.

Message us to be added to the interest list — details and early pricing coming soon.

12/08/2025

12/02/2025

Diver Spotlight: Owen Gardiner — ❄️🇨🇦

Owen Gardiner is a diver shaped by the rugged beauty of Canada’s cold-water environments. His journey began early with the PADI Seal Team after a Discover Scuba through Boy Scouts — the moment that sparked a lifelong connection to the underwater world. He earned his Open Water at eleven, completed his Advanced in the icy waters of Waterton National Park, and even built a Calgary Youth Science Fair project visualizing Decompression Illness, a subject he still finds fascinating today.

As the years went on, Owen continued to push his skills, earning his PADI Rescue Diver and recently completing his Junior Divemaster. Cold water quickly became where he feels most grounded — the silence, the clarity, and the challenge of Canadian diving shaped who he is as a diver.

Forget Me Not Pond in Kananaskis remains one of his favourite sites: crystal clear, peaceful, and a brisk five degrees. Diving off Vancouver Island left a huge impact as well — the colour, structure, and marine life convinced him that BC diving is truly world-class.

Owen’s Current Setup:
🧥 Drysuit: SeaSkin
😎 Mask: Hollis M3
💺 BCD: Zeagle Ranger
🐾 Fins: RK3
⌚ Computer: Shearwater Peregrine TX
🔄 Next: Moving into the GUE long-hose configuration

Bucket List Dives:
⚓ Sweepstakes wreck — Tobermory
❄️ Franklin Expedition wrecks — Arctic

Owen’s message to new Canadian divers: invest in quality gear, make time for fun dives, and keep your skills sharp — true comfort comes from time underwater.

Follow his journey at — more Canadian cold-water adventures ahead. 🌊❄️

12/01/2025

DIVER SPOTLIGHT: GRACE 🌊✨ ()

Some divers are born for warm water…
Grace was born for the Pacific. 💙
Growing up on Vancouver Island, she spent her childhood turning over rocks on the shoreline and pulling up crab traps with her family — always wondering what lived just beyond the surface. In 2021, when she moved back home, she finally decided to find out… and her underwater story began. 🌊

Today, Grace is one of those West Coast divers who makes cold water look magical. One of her most unforgettable moments? Meeting a Hoodwinker Mola drifting calmly among smacks of jellyfish on a deep dive in Port Hardy — a surreal, elegant encounter that stays with you forever. 🪼✨

She’s been pushing her boundaries and skills too, switching into sidemount with APEKS regulators and trusting her Garmin Mk2S as her constant companion underwater. Streamlined, calm, and always prepared — that’s the way she dives.

Her heart belongs to two coasts:
🌲 The rugged wild of Vancouver Island’s west side
❄️ And the icy Atlantic on Canada’s east coast
— both places where the water can humble even the most experienced diver.

Her advice for anyone stepping into our cold Canadian seas?
“Take your time — these waters can take your breath away.”
And she means that in every sense. Beauty and challenge, hand in hand. 💙

But Grace isn’t stopping here. In 2026, she’s taking her passion global — exploring the vibrant reefs and currents of Southeast Asia and South America. If you want to follow the journey, don’t miss her at — she’s just getting started.

🇨🇦🤿
Cold water. Wild coastlines. Big encounters.
This is Grace — and this is Scuba Diving Canada’s next Diver Spotlight.

11/28/2025

🌊 DIVER SPOTLIGHT: KYLEE LIGHTBODY — .lightbody 🌊

After high school, Kylee wanted to be sure marine science was the future she wanted, so she went all in. She traveled to Madagascar, earned her dive certification, and worked with , helping monitor coral reef networks, benthic communities, and overall reef health. That experience didn’t just inspire her — it shaped her path.

She fell in love with studying reef systems, which brought her to Nova Scotia, where she completed a degree in Marine Biology & Environmental Science.

Today, Kylee is pursuing a Master’s in Oceanography at Dalhousie University, focusing on kelp bed distributions in the Metaxas Lab. Her work blends ecological modelling to predict kelp populations with scuba surveys that measure what’s happening underwater — a mix of science, exploration, and discovery.

One of her most unforgettable dives happened in Belize, where she found thriving colonies of staghorn coral, a species she spent months searching for in the Bahamas. Since staghorn populations crashed by 97% in the 1990s, seeing healthy colonies felt rare, emotional, and incredibly meaningful.

⚙️ Favourite Gear
Freediving: Her suit (and trusty weight belt) — durable, comfortable, and tougher than any wetsuit she’s owned.
Scuba: Kylee runs cold, so winter diving only works thanks to her changing robe, the warmest thing she’s found between dives.

🌿 Bucket List
Even as a B.C. local and kelp researcher, she’s still dreaming of diving the kelp forests off Vancouver Island, especially God’s Pocket.

❄️ Cold-Water Advice
Her first cold-water dive was in Nova Scotia in February, and she swore she’d never dive in Canada again. But that changed fast. The temperate reefs, colours, textures, and wildlife here are so unique — absolutely worth the cold once you adapt.

🔬 Explore Her Work
• Metaxas Lab — annametaxas.com
• Seafloor Ecosystem & Mapping Lab — seafloormapping.ca
• Community Eelgrass Restoration Initiative — eelgrass.ca

Follow her at .lightbody 🌿🌊💙