Copper Rockfish

By Stephen Pearce. Another installment of our series on diving near Vancouver. This time Stephen visits the wreck of the Nakaya.

Pale, ghostly, it appears suddenly in the darkness. The Nakaya – a confusion of wood and metal, shards of white paint, timbers sharp and menacing like dragon’s teeth.

It started life as the USS YMS-420 – a minesweeper – commissioned by the US Navy and built for service during WW II. In the 1950’s it was purchased by the Royal Canadian Navy and renamed the HMCS Cordova before being acquired by Harbour Ferries Ltd. of Vancouver. It was there that it was renamed the Nakaya – and that was the name it still held when it slipped beneath the waves at Porteau to become one of British Columbia’s first artificial reefs.

Now home to grumpy lingcod and quill-back copper rockfish, it sits at the far perimeter of the park, alone and distant from the other attractions that Porteau has to offer.

Time has not been kind to the Nakaya. Much of the ship has collapsed. The bridge has fallen over completely and sits in the sand. With a length of 41 meters (136 feet), it’s still an imposing structure but age has made it deceptively fragile and potentially dangerous to the inexperienced scuba diver. It’s for this reason that the marker buoy has been removed, encouraging divers instead to explore the smaller Granthall and Centennial that are located closer to the wharf in shallower water.

For advanced divers that want to check out the Nakaya it’s a 300 meter (984 feet) surface swim to the buoy at the far end of the recommended diving perimeter. The Nakaya is about 10 meters (30 feet) from the buoy at a depth of 21 to 24 meters (70 to 80 feet).
Porteau Cove Provincial Park is open for diving year round and offers ample parking, washrooms and outdoor showers to allow divers to rinse their gear. Campsite and boat launch facilities are also available.

Being only half an hour away from downtown Vancouver, Porteau is easily accessible to a large scuba diving community. On any given weekend experienced and new divers gather to check out the numerous reefs and sunken shipwrecks that the park has to offer. And there are always opportunities to share stories, learn about new dive sites, and meet potential dive buddies.

For further details, including a downloadable diving map, check the following web site: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/porteau/