Santa Monica CA

[kuki9591]

Hi,

A mate is off to Santa Monica CA next week, can anybody suggest any decent dives in the area or recommend any dive centres? Also what sort of suit can you use in Southern California this time of year?

Thanks

Mike

[limeyx]

Originally Posted by kuki9591

Hi,

A mate is off to Santa Monica CA next week, can anybody suggest any decent dives in the area or recommend any dive centres? Also what sort of suit can you use in Southern California this time of year?

Thanks

Mike

For the "hardy" a 7MM wetsuit, decent hood etc. are about the minimum you would need. Temps shallow (up to 40 feet or so) are probably 59F to 63F, deeper may go down to 54-57F. I dive a drysuit year round with 200G thinsulate and it's plenty. Dry gloves are nice but not needed.

South of Santa Monica, there is a decent store "Ocean Adventures" (DIR-oriented but they also do a bunch of recreational stuff)
..:: Ocean Adventures Dive Company - Venice, CA ::..
(I am just a customer -- dont get any commission

There are plenty of excellent dives in the area.
One way is to go to scubaboard.com and there is under the SoCal local section a very informative thread on local diving.

For shore diving:

At night, Veterans Park at Redondo beach is the "de facto" spot. Boring sandy bottom, but a lot of crabs, some eels, sometimes bat or electric rays, lobster, maybe breeding squids at this time of year.

There is excellent shore diving up and down the coast in Palos Verdes (generally not good for a drysuit as there are long hikes and rocks can prang your suit) and up into Malibu

The "easiest" diving if you have a whole day is to go to Catalina island (about 2-3 hours by boat)

California Dive Boats : The Official Page has a list of local boats and links to their pages.

I usually frequent
- Sundiver (slow and fills only air)
- Magician (less slow and fills nitrox)
- Seabass (12 packer, fast and can go to some fun spots)

The absolute best "reef" dive in many people's opinion is "Farnsworth Banks" on the backside of Catalina island, but it is offshore and deep (the best stuff is 100-140 feet) and hard to get to due to weather.

Catalina itself is very recreational diving (as are 99% of the boats that go there) less than 100 feet, easy single tank dives.

Generally boats provide tanks/weights (call to check)

Typical cost for a boat and 3 single tank dives is $110-120 for a day (food and fills included) and tip of $10-20 per day

hope that helps (and sorry for my non-metric units -- I am lame, especially given that I am English and lived in UK for 22 years -- never dived there though!)

EDIT: The Oil rigs are also a good dive -- if your mate can get a trip there, it's a cool experience.
Rigs are in about 300-600 feet of blue water with often awesome vis, and are close to shore (45 mins boat trip)
Not too many boats go out to them (they are live working rigs). Covered in life, and you can sometimes see Mola Mola and get dive bombed by sea lions !

[kuki9591]

Cheers,

green on it's way.

Mike

[limeyx]

Originally Posted by kuki9591

Cheers,

green on it's way.

Mike

hope it works(ed) out OK.
been some pretty good conditions around here recently ... especially down in San Diego.