Diving in the Comox Valley, British Columbia

Tex Enemark, President of the Artificial Reef Society of BC, and Bill Coltart, Projects Co-ordinator for the Comox Valley Dive Association, said that an arrangement had been made by which the diving community and tourism operators in the Comox Valley area were taking on the responsibility for raising financing to place the plane as and artificial reef for divers about a mile off shore from Comox.

Enemark, speaking for the ARSBC said, "The Comox-area diver and diving community have wanted an artificial reef sunk nearby since the BC artificial reef program started a dozen years ago but, for a variety of reasons, it has never happened. This will be a very interesting and unusual artificial reef," he continued. "It will add hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to dive tourism in the area.

"By virtue of her being only 37 feet high," said Coltart, "she will be able to offer divers the opportunity to do penetration dives shallower than 70 feet. This makes for an ideal diving training environment. The 6 ships that the ARSBC have sunk are somewhat deeper, with main decks at over 80 feet in most cases and the bulk of the artificial reef below that. Such depths are sometimes intimidating for divers, and shorten the time a diver is able to spend underwater. The airframe, with its wide-open inside space, numerous existing windows, and extra access holes we will cut for divers, will offer a well lit, expansive reef to explore at an advantageous depth. It will be an excellent and safe place to learn wreck basic diving skills."

Howard Robins, Vice President of the ARSBC, who has led the preparation of the airframe for sinking, said, "A large number local divers, as well as divers from Washington State, worked very hard as volunteers to prepare the airplane for sinking over the spring and summer. The airframe is now clean and ready for inspection, and the only thing between us and sinking the plane is a detailed Environment Canada permitting process, which we now have to start all over again. A permit was filed today."

"The plane was built in the 1960’s and is 100 feet long, has a 96 foot wingspan, and in its stripped state weighs about 20 tonnes. She served the people of Canada very well for many years and now goes on to a whole other career as a major interest to divers, a "condo for fish" and other marine life, and a platform for scientific study. I cannot think of a single diver who has ever ridden an airplane without thinking, ‘Gee, this would make a great artificial reef’ for diving.

"At this point do not yet know exactly where in the Comox area, or when, we will be sinking the 737, " said Enemark, "because it must be environmentally sound according to stringent Environment Canada rules and a permit is required from Navigable Waters. Such a site must not be in conflict with other users, among other things. There is also a lengthy consultation process to go through. We hope to sink her in May," he added.

"Dive tourism," concluded Enemark, "is rapidly growing in BC. However, one of the continuing challenges we face in making it grow more rapidly is inadequate financial support from tourism promotion agencies. While BC Tourism contributed $120,000 to promoting dive tourism in 1995, and both Nanaimo Tourism and Vancouver Island Tourism have also been helpful in recent years, the amounts have not been enough to adequately promote an industry that adds about $ 8 million per year to our tourism industry. In its absence, the publicity from the activities of the ARSBC in sinking ships to make artificial reefs have put BC on the world map of scuba diving, and led to readers of Rodale’s Scuba Diving Magazine rate BC as one of the best dive destinations in the world in recent years, with BC earning 8 ‘firsts’ in Rodale’s Annual Survey, more than any other area.

The working capital for the artificial reef program was provided by the Federal government’s Western Economic Diversification ministry."

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