Tuwanek sits within Sechelt Inlet on BC's Sunshine Coast, offering four sites that cover most of what this part of the Salish Sea has to offer. Beginners can wade in from the pebble beach at Tuwanek Beach or explore the reef, kelp forest, and seagrass at Coopers Green and the shallow headlands of Sargeant Bay Provincial Park. Intermediate divers head by boat to the HMCS Chaudiere, a decommissioned Royal Canadian Navy destroyer resting as an artificial reef down to thirty-two metres. Water is cold throughout the year, with temperatures staying in the single figures in winter and rising only modestly in summer. Nudibranchs, kelp greenlings, Dungeness crab, and harbour seals are all recorded across the area.
Monthly water temperature across Tuwanek's sites, from satellite sea-surface data corrected for depth. The band shows the site-to-site spread.
Temperatures hold in the single figures through the colder months and rise only into the low-to-mid teens in summer, making a drysuit or thick wetsuit advisable at all times. Visibility is generally better in winter when plankton is reduced, and conditions at shore sites are typically calmer than at the deeper HMCS Chaudiere wreck.
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Water temperature around Tuwanek ranges from about 7°C in January to 14°C in July, based on satellite sea-temperature data for its dive sites.
In the warm season (about 14°C) a 7mm or semi-dry suit is comfortable in Tuwanek; in the coldest months (about 7°C) step up to a drysuit.
Fin maps 4 sites in Tuwanek (4 scuba diving sites).
2 more sites to explore
