God’s Pocket, Canada 2027

September 18, 2027 - October 1, 2027

| £4195

Two Workshop Events. Each 6 nights. Please contact Caroline@scubatravel.com to get your name on the waitlist.

Widely hailed as the best cold water diving on the planet, the rich and colourful marine life of the protected waters of Browning Pass, off northern Vancouver Island, BC, Canada, is truly one of the great places to take photos in the ocean. God’s Pocket Dive Resort is remote, off the grid, but fortunately nestled right at the heart of this marine wonderland. Alex says “without any doubt this is one of my favourite locations for both macro and wide angle underwater photography. Temperate waters might be harder work than tropical diving, but these waters more than make up for it with a phenomenal density of colourful marine life. And as a bonus surface intervals are packed with wildlife too: when you are likely to see humpback whales, sea otters and bald eagles. This is a fantastic location for both macro and wide angle underwater photography, and my workshop will focus on teaching the techniques for both that work best in these cold waters, where visibility is variable and fingers are covered in gloves. Above all, God’s Pocket is special place, and with recent investment significantly updated, who specialise in making cold water diving as easy and comfortable as possible.”

Alex adds ‘the dark, calm waters give little away above the surface, but as soon as you descend you will find every surface is packed with life and stuffed with photogenic subjects. The walls are smeared in a palette of the rich primary colors of yellow sponges, red soft corals, white, pink and green anemones, orange seapens and more. These literally crawl with invertebrate life; you’ll see decorator crabs, shrimps and nudibranchs in numbers like never before (although not as many species as on tropical reefs). Oh, and everything is huge – nudibranchs as big as your fist, starfish as big as your chest, and the giant pacific octopus, well just wait and see! And there are plenty of fish, including photographer favourites: warbonnets, wolf eels, red irish lords, sculpins and rockfish. A forest of giant bull kelp towers above in places, the canopy billowing in the current, with dappling beams of sunlight playing through the fronds. And once the dive is done you get to return to this fabulous little resort, famed for delicious food, on its own uninhabited island.”

There are two workshops available (planned to be identical) and we are taking over the entire resort for both. We’ve increased the group-size from previous years (so that despite God’s Pocket’s prices increasing, this workshop costs less than my last two there!). And we are still running under capacity to provide a little more space on the boat and around any key subjects underwater. Alex’s workshops will cover both wide angle and macro techniques suitable for the conditions and focused on the popular subjects we are encountering! And Alex will also run image review sessions on most evenings. God’s Pocket Resort offers an amazing escape to nature and an off-the-grid experience (although you can expect great food, comfortable beds, warm cabins, hot showers and reliable internet access. Watch this episode of the Underwater Photography Show recorded shortly after the 2025 workshops for a flavour of what to expect.

THE COLD

The “but” with God’s Pocket’s amazing diving is that this is cold water! This trip is suitable for those comfortable and experienced with drysuit diving. God’s Pocket is run by an excellent, but small team. The operation works brilliantly for divers who arrive on top of their gear and ready to dive in these waters. If you are experienced diver, but with no drysuit experience there is time to build up that experience before the trip, but not on it. God’s Pocket ask all their incoming guests to have plenty recently in a drysuit. I would expect the water temperature to be between 9-11˚C, which isn’t super-cold, but definitely takes its toll when diving three, even four times a day, every day. When the weather is sunny it is easy to warm up again between dives, but less so when it rains. The dives will be as loose groups and, following a detailed briefing, are unguided. Alex adds, “God’s Pocket run a fantastic operation, and I’ve not been anywhere that makes diving in cold conditions easier or more enjoyable. The dive boat has a lift/elevator for easy ends of dives and the crew help with gloves, fins, clips and cameras. Note that God’s Pocket doesn’t have rental dive gear, and have limited spares, so you need to bring a fully working set of gear and drysuit with you (minus tanks and weights).”

Since Alex’s last God’s Pocket workshops, many people have stated an interest in joining, so to accommodate as many different people as possible, initially we will not allow people to book both weeks. However, if the weeks don’t fill (unlikely) or we get cancellations, Scuba Travel will email those booked on the trips and offer the chance to double up. You can see a gallery of Alex’s images from previous trips here and read Alex’s Alert Diver article written after the 2023 workshops. “I recommend planning this workshop as part of longer stay on Vancouver Island,” says Alex. “There is so much to see there. I’d plan a day or two of warm up diving somewhere like Campbell River, and then travel up to Port Hardy for the workshop. Then afterwards maybe do some salmon snorkelling or a few days of topside shooting (bears, whales, etc).”

VITALS

Workshop 1: 18-24th September 2027. Workshop 2: 25th September-1st October 2027.

The workshop costs £4195 GBP per person (Port Hardy to Port Hardy) – includes three boat dives a day from the resort’s jetty (no diving on arrival day and departure day) and Alex’s Workshop. Accommodation based on shared twin rooms, with three meals per day, snacks and hot and cold drinks for 6 nights. The delicious food is served family style. Nitrox, to 32%, is included. A deposit of £1400 GBP is required to hold your place.

GETTING THERE

The resort picks up from the dock in Port Hardy, (and the price now covers car parking at the dock or Port Hardy airport transfers for all guests). Some people will self drive as part of a longer stay exploring the amazing Vancouver Island (remember you need to take a ferry to get onto Vancouver Island, and it is a 5-6 hour drive from the crossings to Port Hardy). Alex will likely dive in Campbell River for a day or two either pre or post the workshops TBC. Scuba Travel can also arrange flights from Vancouver – price once the local flight schedules are confirmed. The flight takes just over an hour on a small, propellor driven plane (note that the plane allows two large hold bags, a big hand luggage (that actually ends up in the back) and a small under seat bag. But note that there is a finite amount of luggage space on the flights – but photographers have all coped with these allowances on the previous trips.

BOOKING

These workshops are now fully booked, for further information and for waitlist places please contact Scuba Travel. Email is the best way to start booking this trip. Please write a sentence explaining your cold water diving experience when contacting Caroline about booking, as this will save her check with you. Something like “I’ve been to God’s Pocket several times before” or “I regularly drysuit dive here in Scotland” is all she needs, not a full diving CV!

Contact Caroline@scubatravel.com. A non-refundable deposit of £1400 GBP  is required to secure your place. A further 30% is due 9 months before (January 2027). Final balance is due 100 days before travel.

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I am excited to see my story about the global biodiversity crisis impacting arguably the biodiverse ecosystem: coral reefs in Wild Eye magazine. The story aims to help readers understand why the biodiversity of this ecosystem is so special, and the importance of highly protected marine protected areas in preserving it. The I feel that all the talk around coral reef conservation is too focused on restoration. But the great ecological value of coral reefs is the huge biodiversity of life they support, and the best way to conserve this is not in rebuilding but in properly protecting our richest reefs. Both approaches have their value, but I feel the conversation, conservation and funding are way too skewed towards restoration being the solution, which puts the unique biodiversity at risk. This image shot with Sony A1 + Nikonos 15mm. Nauticam housing, Retra Strobes. I’ll share a link in the comments where you can read the current issue for FREE! This image shot with Nikon D4 + Trioplan 100mm. Subal housing, Seacam strobes. This image shot with Sony A1 + Sony 90mm. Nauticam housing, Retra Strobes. This image shot with Nikon D850, 105mm, Subal housing, Retra Strobes. Image shot with Nikon Z8 + 16-35mm, Seacam OPP, Seacam housing, Seacam strobes.
Something of a departure from my normal posts, but I wanted to tell you about these T-shirts. @thesharktrust has launched two new Ts featured a couple of my classic shark pictures. I guess pictures need to be old to become classics - and these two have a vintage of over 15 and 20 years old! Available in a wide range of sizes - as ably demonstrated here by me and Isabella. And I believe they can ship them most places in the world. There is no money coming to me for this - all the proceeds go to the amazing conservation work carried out by the Shark Trust. I’ll put a link in the comments, but being IG it can’t be clickable.
It was wonderful to find Ras Mohammed packed with a great spawning aggregation of snappers. The Egyptian Government deserve a lot of credit for helping keeping these very long lived fish (many more than 50 years old) safe from fishing. This shot is with the new Sony A7RVI camera in the new Nauticam housing. The swirl effect is created by simultaneously rotating the camera, while zooming the lens during a long exposure. The FCP lens is especially good for this because of its very large zoom lens. @nauticamhousings @retra_uwt @oceantribefleet
I understand that boats need to moor in the Red Sea, but was very sad to find one tied to one of my favourite coral bommies, a spot that is almost entirely covered in living coral. Most of the boats are careful, so this was sad to see. Hopefully the coral wasn’t harmed.
How ever many times I see the bright beauty of Red Sea reefs, it never dims. Such a stunning expression of wild nature here on Egypt’s coral reefs. My lenses are enjoying a treat this week!
I haven’t seen a frogfish in the Red Sea for ages. Very much because of our choice of sites. But sometimes we get lucky and get one in the classic Red Sea scenery. I remember being so excited when I found this one. Taken with the Nikonos 20-35mm lens. Maybe this year will serve up another.
We swim past 1000s of them, but do we stop and appreciate anthias enough? On my mind as I transition from shoots in Fiji and the Red Sea (where some of these shots come from), two of the best spots to see them in all their gathered splendour. Individually they are beautifully streamlined, with fusiform bodies and forked, lyre tails. And stunningly coloured too. They are worthy of our attention. Sometimes even the females too 😂 There are lots of amazing big animals in the ocean, but there are some pretty neat small ones as well.
Hooray! Finally made my keepers selection from my March Raja trip. It is always a slow process because I set myself the task of doing all the IDs before allowing myself the fun of processing! Note to self - stop diving in the heart of marine biodiversity and do more single species shoots! There are about 100 shots from this trip on my website already. Here are a few new ones I processed out this morning.
I’ve published a page on my website with my detailed recommendations for set up, settings customisation and even lens options for shooting the new Sony A7RVI underwater. Even covers the new programmable Shooting Modes. Happy WOD’26 I realise not many have that camera yet, but most of it is directly applicable to other Sony cameras. And in fact other mirrorless cameras too, as most the options we need to change regularly while shooting underwater are universal across the cameras even if the manufacturers have different names for the controls. The page is a bit hidden away on my website. So if you want a direct link message me or comment below and ask and I can DM you.
Look forward to hunting for the summer spawning aggregation schools in the Ras Mohammed National Park in the coming weeks. Pictured here are bohar snappers, blacktail barracuda x2, batfish x2, bigeye trevally, giant trevally, unicornfish and bohar snappers again. Spawning aggregations are easily fished out by people, with all the adults from over a large area gathered in one spot. And once they have gone they don’t easily come back, as the ‘memory’ of where and when to gather is lost for that species in that area. It has been up and down for these gatherings over the last 30 years, with fishing controlled and uncontrolled. These days the fishermen are paid not to fish in the important summer spawning season, although they argue that the scientists have the timing wrong and they want to fish in summer. Hopefully we will see impressive schools this year and they will replenish the surrounding reefs with the next generation.
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