“Every time I go diving, I learn something new or I discover something new that I haven’t seen before. I forget all about my world, I forget about… my life, and I’m just really in it. You really, really just get in that moment and appreciate whatever you’re observing or looking at or watching.”
Always a passionate swimmer, Andrea discovered her love of scuba diving on vacation. Since then, she has dived all over, but it’s the waters around Campbell River that she finds most captivating. “People are always like, it’s so dark, it’s so gray,” she says. “I say, no, we have every color under the rainbow here, and you can’t put your finger down without touching life.”
Scuba diving soon became more than a hobby, but a way of life. Every time she puts on her gear, it’s a chance for her to disconnect from the world and connect with nature.
Her most memorable wildlife encounter was a 40-minute encounter with an octopus that became a viral video. In the clip, a friendly octopus crawled over to her and her friends, giving many of them extended hugs. It latched onto Andrea’s camera, and even greeted her out-of town friend who had never even seen an octopus before – much less been cuddled by one. “Just to experience the magic and that connection was something that we don’t get to connect with every day. I have no words, I just say epic. That’s all that I can describe it as,” she says.
However, with scuba diving comes the responsibility to care for the environment. Andrea often sees the harm that humans cause to wildlife and takes it upon herself to educate others on the importance of conservation. “Other divers can give back to the environment by doing exactly what I do… I go pick up that garbage when I see it,” she says.
Andrea is also a school teacher, and she passes on her knowledge of nature to her students. “When I take my students out there on those field trips, talking about where our food comes from, showing them indigenous plants, and taking them to the beach, I’m showing them that we eat these crabs or we can show these fish,” she explains. “It’s just the world we live in. It’s just nature. We have so many… man-made things here in today’s society that I think we need to go back and go rediscover.”
Want to document adventures underwater like Andrea? Learn more about diving near Campbell River.
