LA/ San Diego Area

[babs13]

Trying to figure out if there are good dive spots in LA/ San Diego area, and if it would be worth doing a dive and drive down the coast from LA to San Diego. Has anyone done this? Suggestions for places to dive? Not sure where to start here. This would rock for gobble gooble weekend. I presume that diving in the area would require a 2 piece 7mm wetsuit or drysuit with undergarments? I presume all the other Puget Soup required gear would function too.

[Huskychemist]

Coachrenz and I took a trip to California a few summers ago. We didn't do nearly as much diving as we'd hoped, but it was a great trip regardless.

We dove at La Jolla shores in San Diego. Nice dive. Saw a very large bat ray, an interesting Octo (Tim got a much better picture) and some other cool stuff.

Then we did a shark dive out of Los Angeles harbor (forget the dive-op's name) that was a really neat trip looking for Mako and Blue Sharks.

We continued the drive up and dove at Point Lobos State Preserve south of Monterrey. This is a MUST DIVE in my opinion if you're going to be driving to Cali. The colors here are amazing. You need to sign up for the dives in advance, as they only accept 15 buddy teams per day. But it is well worth it.

We also dove the Monterrey Breakwater (as a day dive and a night dive). This is another neat dive and I highly recommend it. There are numerous other dives in that area that we missed that would be just as good.

Galleries for the dives are linked below.

La Jolla Shores

Point Lobos

Monterrrey Breakwater


Tim has some pictures also. (Check his website: http://timrenz.com and look at the coldwater galleries.)

Great stuff. Highly recommended.

[LCF]

There are definitely shore diving sites in LA and San Diego. I've only done a couple -- Vets Park, and Deadman's Reef in Laguna. Although Vets is not an inspiring site for structure, we saw a lot of cool stuff there. Deadman's Reef is beautiful structure, but has a long -- I mean LONG, like LOOOOONNNNGGG -- surface swim (30 minutes).

If you are seriously considering this, I'd think about posting on the Dive Matrix site -- There are a LOT of Southern California divers who can give you advice on sites, conditions, and what to expect at that time of year.

The best diving Peter and I have done in SoCal has been from boats. Diving in the Channel Islands, and off Catalina, absolutely ROCKS.

[Dmitchell]

If you are going to dive in SD hook up with the Marissa (dive boat). We just did 3 days with them week before last and they are a great boat and crew!

Dave

[defied]

I lived in San Diego, and one of our favorites sites was Lajolla. Not only was it easy to get into the water, the Cafes across the streets served very well for SI waits. 0]

[babs13]

Thanks for the input!!

[coachrenz]

The shark dive we did was with Dive Aquatica and Manny Koch. It looks like they are using the Magician Dive Boat out of San Pedro now. At the time, it was the only operation that allowed out of the cage diving with the blue sharks. Problem was when we did it was that some not very nice mako sharks showed up, so, we didn't get to dive out of the cage. But got unlimited time in the cage.

The operation is really a neat one. They only chum with stuff that is a regular part of the sharks diet (except for the extra chum that Huskychemist was providing over the rail) and they participate in a shark tagging program. We got to catch, tag and release two sharks.

[Huskychemist]

The operation is really a neat one. They only chum with stuff that is a regular part of the sharks diet (except for the extra chum that Huskychemist was providing over the rail) and they participate in a shark tagging program. We got to catch, tag and release two sharks.

And I'm convinced to this day that my own chum is what really attracted the sharks in such big numbers.

[coachrenz]

The operation is really a neat one. They only chum with stuff that is a regular part of the sharks diet (except for the extra chum that Huskychemist was providing over the rail) and they participate in a shark tagging program. We got to catch, tag and release two sharks.

And I'm convinced to this day that my own chum is what really attracted the sharks in such big numbers.

Don't you have some pictures and cool video of our shark trip? Maybe you should post some of them here.

[babs13]

We also dove the Monterrey Breakwater (as a day dive and a night dive). This is another neat dive and I highly recommend it. There are numerous other dives in that area that we missed that would be just as good.

when i was at breakwater [aka our w. seattle coves] there was suppose to be a leopard shark out there. i didn't see it though, viz was awful that day - could barely see my finger tips.