Excellent Experience! Our daughter did a couple of dives with them a few weeks ago (Mike) and loved it. So we wanted to dive and thought we would dive with them. We found Brenda (the owner) to be very friendly, professional and helpful. The shop has a very “warm, friendly and relaxed feel”. The rental equipment my wife and daughter used was in excellent condition. We did four dives over two days (Tim). The vis was excellent, safety was a top priority, and we saw lots of sea life, everything from octopus, star fish and sea cucumbers to nudibranches! We look forward to coming back and diving with Nanaimo Dive outfitters again. They have a great team!

Great service and a great guide! I emailed several dive shops about doing some diving in the Nanaimo area and Nanaimo Dive Outfitters was the only shop to respond to my emails and cater to my needs which was much appreciated. All the gear I rented worked great and administration was real easy. I am a relatively novice diver but my guide Andrea was really great in providing a refresher while also letting me remember things on my own. We did a total of 6 dives over three days. She was very safe and knowledgeable about diving. She also knew where to look for wildlife and we saw many Giant Pacific Octopus and some Wolf Eels along with dozens of other interesting critters. I don't expect guides to produce wildlife but it was nice to be with someone that knew where to look. Overall, she did a really great job and I was very satisfied with my experience!

awesome So, long story shorter; I completed 4 discovery dives on a holiday last year and fell head over heals in love with scuba diving. My son and I completed our open water courses in the summer of 2019 in the Edmonton area. I had intended on going on a holiday this spring and doing lots of diving but stupid Covid stole that experience from me. So I spent the money I'd saved for my holiday on dive equipment and in turn found out the Nanaimo Dive Outfitters were diving on the island. I called the shop up, and with less then a weeks notice they arranged 4 guided shore dives, a boat diver course, a nitrox course, a deep diver course and a navigation course. I had next to no experience diving having only completed my open water course and not diving at all after. The Dive shop and it's guides were knowledgeable and very professional, catering my dives to my experience level and progressing them as I progressed. I asked a plethora of questions (some must have seemed incredibly simple) as I know virtually nothing about the ocean. They answered each and every one never once loosing their patience. If you want to up your game, or just want to get the most of your Nanaimo diving experiences, get ahold of Nanaimo Dive Outfitters. Let them customize your dives, and/or courses to get the memories you'll treasure the rest of your life!Thanks again for the amazing experiences and I can't wait to come back and dive some more.

they are just amazing. They are PADI, I'm SSI.;)They dive with dry suit I work for 10 years wearing max a 3mm wet suit. ;)But with no jokes they are amazing.Great, friendly and professional since the first email contact.They

Park near the downtown A lot of family functions are held in this park mostly during the summer months,a good number of concession booth are on this site during these functions such as the silly boat races,dragon boat races a stage to hold bands and singers that perform also a location of the 100 year anniversary plaque is along the shore you can see the ferries depart and the sea planes landing and taking off. treed area for shady rest some parking along side and more pay parking about 2 blocks away.

Very skilled guides, professional organisation Nanaimo dive outfitters are a very professional team, with quality equipment, friendly staff and skilled, professional guides.The dives i made were awesome.Would defenately recommend!

Diving with Nanaimo Dive Outfitters Just had 3 great days diving with Nanaimo Dive Outfitters (NDO). Firstly, wanted to give them a massive thumbs up for the level of their communication. I don't have a regular dive buddy and use dive shops and charters quite a lot. You would be astonished at how poor a lot of them are at communicating (things like are they diving the week you are interested in, can they find a divermaster to guide you, can they supply tanks of the correct variety). NDO were great. I knew what to expect and when and where to turn up! Thanks! I knew I was going to have fun even before I got out there.3 days of 2 tank diving. We went by van to the sites (all just north of Nanoose Bay). Dives were great. The divemaster/guide knew his stuff and knew the area. Saw tons of octopus, wolf eels, nudibranch and, of course, fish. Thoroughly enjoyable week. Thank-you Shirley, Theo and Scott!

An excellent shop for diving in Nanaimo. An excellent shop for diving in Nanaimo. We did a two-tank dive and hired a DM to guide us. Chris was very professional and knowledgeable and a great guide.Cpt. Steve is great, too. He also knows everything you need to know about diving in the area. I felt that all the prices were very reasonable. And the shop was very easy to deal with both over email and by phone.

Two dives at Snake - two fingers for Nanaimo Dive Outfitters (NDO) Over from Ireland on a family trip to Vancouver for a few days. Took a day out for diving. Up at 4.40am, taxi to Horseshoe ferry, on dive boat “Shepherd” at 8.35. Rental gear ready, two drysuits to choose from. Chris was the skipper, Theo my dive buddy. Another buddy pair of tekkie divers were present doing their own thing, and wanted to dive both wrecks, Saskatchewan and Cape Breton. As a first-time visiting diver/instructor to the island I had no objections. Down we went, a slight current, along the line attached to the ship beneath. I followed Moses, sorry - Theo - as he gave me the grand tour of this purposely-sunk artificial reef; the ship has transformed into an oasis of life! Plumose anemones, some as long as your arm, adorned this proud vessel of the Canadian Navy. They were everywhere! Between them curious eyes peeped out at you. The local fish population and other denizens of the deep had all come to view the intruders to their domain. Ling Cod, Quilled Rockfish, a couple of Lions Mane jellies.The wreck itself was openly inviting; safe swim throughs allowing one to view the innards of a fighting ship. Who needs to go to Truk!?There’s nothing like coldwater diving to give you that après dive satisfying feeling of yes! we’ve just accomplished another excellent dive in - truth be told - an environment wherein we do not belong. Warmwater wreck diving just cannot induce the same effect. Forty-five minutes later we were discussing the dive onboard whilst having hot chocolate and cookies, thanks Chris!Our second dive of the day was on the military supply ship Cape Breton. Again, the spot-me-if-you-can residents were in attendance, most notably a fine example of Cabezon. Across, around, between, inside, through. All terms that can define wreck diving. There are others that may apply also: dark, challenging, confined, gloomy, sharp, silted. To achieve that feeling of a high down low, a somewhat paradoxical term, everything has to come together on the dive: mindset, knowledge, understanding, skills, equipment, buddy. The absence of any one of which can detrimentally affect the dive, the diver, the diving. Our second dive ended as did the first; we ascended up the downline, completed our safety stop, climbed the ladder. Mission accomplished. In my unbroken 33+ years of diving I have had my fair share of disappointing dives due to circumstances beyond my control. Boat runs out of fuel, equipment unsuited to purpose/unavailable, skipper drinking, “qualified” divemaster-buddy clueless, you get the drift…To use the well-worn cliché, I can count on two hands - that’s ten fingers - the number of dives that, for me, have truly epitomized what our great sport of scuba can, and should symbolize: fun. A large part of what can make a dive fun is the person that’s down there with you, your dive buddy. Without delving too much into that oft-misquoted title “buddy” let me state from the outset, in my experience, a good dive buddy is one who knows more of what not to do than what to do, but would be equally adept at doing whatever has to be done should a need arise. Theo is one of only three people with whom I’ve had the pleasure of diving who has these qualities in abundance. Yesterday I had two of the most pleasurable dives I’ve done in a long while. I dived, I saw, I learned, I enjoyed. Thank you Theo - I give you one big thumbs up!And two fingers for NDO

Dive Instruction Both my 13 and 15 year old children have taken courses from Shirley and her staff. Their professionalism, patience and understanding of teaching children was amazing. I strongly recommend this store to anyone looking for a family dive course or one of their numerous specialty or advanced training programs. Their price was reasonable and their rental equipment was top quality.

Interesting cold water diving experience We took a two-dives trip with NDO. The communication was smooth from the very beginning, we agreed by mail on the equipment needed and presented our qualification so the best suitable dive sites could be chosen for us. Shirley geared us up even off the shop opening hours. Captain Steve was very helpful onboard our diving boat, not only he shared his diving experience and gave us some tips, but he also helped us with the gear. We chose to take guided dives, and it was a very good decision. Without Chris, our dive guide, we would never see as many underwater creatures as he showed us. In case you hesitate, guided dives are highly recommended (especially if you are new to this diving area).

Scuba Diving on Shipwreck and Reef Great experience! Captain Steve was extremely knowledgeable and helpful. We saw one of the shipwrecks and then dove the reef where we saw octupus and wolf eels. We had so much fun and will definitely be back again!