Ocean Quest Dive Centre

I did my Search and Recovery, and my Rescue certification at Ocean Quest. Excellent instruction and a fantastic community.

I got into diving a few years ago. I was always looking for a shop to be my “home shop”. I tried most shops in the the Vancouver area and they all left me wanting more however somehow I missed Ocean Quest. I left the Province for work and upon my return, I sent messages to all of the shops and Ocean Quest welcomed me into the shop. Very quickly I found the shop to feel like family. This place is well worth your time. Equipment is amazing and service is even better. Their classes are kept at a small student to instructor ratio which allows you almost personal instruction. Their Saturday mornings are kept busy as they host free professionally led dives open to all levels of divers.

I just completed my open water course. I signed up for group lessons but ended up being the only student remaining for the ocean dives...lucky me. Even better, between dives I chatted with other instructors as Phil (and no doubt every other Ocean Quest employee) basically knows everyone in the industry. What I liked most though is that these guys are not out there to sell you anything. Sure they have products and services that they need to sell to keep the doors open, but it is genuinely more about promoting the sport and giving top notch advice. A word of advice: Take your courses in their entirety here. We had in our group two students who only did the pool here and the open dives they will do in their tropical destinations. I will be actually diving and enjoying my experience in Cancun while they will still be learning their required skills during their vacations. They will be lucky to fit in an actual thrilling dive. I will also arrive with all my personal gear properly fitted, never peed in, properly cared for etc. while they will be dealing with so-so rental gear that sort of fits and will do the job adequately but not the best. I really lucked out in deciding to take my course at Ocean Quest. Was it all great? No. The fins on my first pool lesson hurt my feet and I had to ditch them, and my first BCD had seen better days, er, years. My regulator on the first ocean dive was hard to breath with. Those are minor issues, but the test of a top notch business is how they deal with such issues. For example, Phil traded regulators with me and dealt with the labored breathing himself (Phil's personal reg was perfect!). Ocean Quest is absolutely my go-to dive shop!

Dry suit Diving at Whytecliff - Sierra the instructor was very good, passionate about diving and enjoyed every minute of the course.

Had a great experience taking my open water dive course here. Super good vibes all around, very friendly, attentive and professional staff

We had a great experience with our training. The 3 instructors were amazing, would highly recommend.

I took my sidemount course with Ocean Quest in December and it is by far the best I have ever taken.I also bought my sidemount kit from them and they were great at helping me set up the entire rig, while going through the process, so I could adjust it myself if needed.Alex was a great instructor and he took his time to answer every question and went through every single step of the course, and made sure that we understood everything. It seems like the owner Greg has made his own modified program for teaching sidemount, (PADI has some stuff about using a snorkel, which to me seems like a hazard), so I'm glad they didn't ask us to use that, and this to me seems so much better.Remember it's about the instructor and not the agency.It is also worth mentioning, that although you can come and get your OW / AOW certs here, these are definitely more of a technical diveshop (but don't let that stop you from going here if you are new to diving). Most, if not all of the staff also seems to be diving SM themselves, and it clearly shows (Fabiola knew the length of the various bungees by memory).I would also mention to anyone considering buying gear, these guys will let you try most things before you buy. I only had the the Fourth Element Arctic and Alex offered to let me borrow their vest if I thought I would be cold. A lot of other shops won't let you do that, they will even try and sell you stuff off the shelf just to clear their storage.You won't find 100 different brands of masks and fins here, but that is because they value quality over quantity and only sell gear they, themselves have tried and would recommend. If for some reason you insist on split fins, I'm sure they could do a special order. Otherwise there's other diveshops that thinks they are great and sell them.My next course will probably be the foundations and then off to rescue diver.Can't wait to go diving with you guys again.

A Dive Center that really cares about the community. The kind of place that everyone knows your name (if you let them) and are more than happy to help anytime. Makes me really love the sport

Thank you Aiden and Zack for the excellent advice and help. As always, the staff at Ocean quest are knowledgeable and polite.