Looking to do Friday night beach dives in Malibu

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

So LeeAnne, I've rounded up several freinds that are down to do this dive with us....we just have to pick a date!
 
How about this, next time conditions look *really* decent, shoot me a PM and we'll come join you. Would be fun to meet up anyway, and having a local contact would be a huge help. It just gets frustrating to make the drive up and so rarely (for us) get in good dives there. :)

And I don't think ANYWHERE in SoCal is seeing good diving today. :wink:

Call ahead for conditions (one of you guys should have my number from the last time you scootered out to the pinnacles). I've had some spectacular beach dives this year already. Even the last dive with 2-4' viz was worth it by the time we got out to the reef. One of the guys with us (DM candidate) said it was probably his favorite Malibu dive ever, and he saw it in horrible conditions. But no surf

Let me know if you want a heads up when conditions look nice. Also, Malibu Divers has daily FB postings on conditions and forecasts, which makes it easier to plan

Diving anywhere in Malibu today is going to suck, though
 
Hey, glad to see all the responses! Sorry I was incommunicado for a couple days - I was the volunteer chef at a dinner last night at our yacht club, and I've spent the past two days cooking. No time to check ScubaBoard. (No, I'm not a chef - I was just doing my duty as part of the ladies cooking group to be lead chef for one event a year...and I'm glad I only have to do this once a year cuz my feet are KILLING ME!)

Anyway, looks like we've got some interest. That's great! Obviously the weather is a factor...all this rain leaves shore sites muddy for days. Yuck. And Malibu is not known for its great vis to begin with.

I've got a couple of upcoming weekends already booked - next weekend, and April 13-15. But I've got April 6 open - that's almost 2 weeks away, hopefully enough time for conditions to settle down, provided we don't get anymore of these nasty storms!

So...anyone want to give April 6 a go? We can watch the weather reports and see if how it's looking as we get closer to that date. I'm sure HOPING it's going to be good weather because we're also booked to go out on Peace on April 8.

I'd like to start out at Broad Beach, only because I know that spot so well, and it's an easy entry point. There's a nice bright light right at the bottom of the stairs (at least there WAS last time I was there!). I know some divers prefer to gear up at their cars and walk down the stairs in their gear, but with my back issues I don't think I can do that anymore. I mean I've done it that way a ton of times, but that was before I had back surgery....and I'm not sure I could even make it back up the stairs in my gear these days. :( Provided it's not super-high tide (and it won't be - looks like high tide is at 9:47pm), we can lay out a blanket at the bottom of the stairs, carry our gear down and then gear up there. Does that sound good?

Plan is: I'll head over there right after work, so I should be there by no later than 5:45pm. What time can everyone get there? If y'all can get there by 6 that would be great. I know from experience we'll waste a sh**load of time gabbing before we gear up. :wink: Sunset is at 7:20pm, so by the time we hit the water it should be dusk.

I'll keep watch on the weather and wave reports. It's been a loooong time since I did a beach dive, so for this first one I'd really like it to be nice and flat. If it's not I'm probably going to postpone, as I just don't want to get maytagged on my first beach dive in over a year. Geoff, if you can scope out the surf situation before we all head out, that would be great.

Christopher, that would be fun if you can come! I know it's a bit of a haul, and lemme tell ya if I could get myself down to Laguna on a Friday night I would pick that in a heartbeat. (I'd choose Laguna over either Malibu or Vets any day!) But it would take me well over 2 hours if not 3 to get there in Friday rush hour traffic. And then another couple hours to get home! Malibu may not be great diving, but hey...we're in the water, and we're seeing fishies. :) (Hopefully anyway!)
 
Ever so often I post this..


With the passing of the seasons first good rain event it is appropriate to remind everyone to think about the hazards that could be encountered during a dive.
Early runoff from streets and storm drains will carry oils, pesticides and other contaminates into the creeks, rivers terminating in the ocean.

As the rainy season becomes mature agricultural runoff, fecal material and high levels of bacterial contamination can be expected.

If you MUST dive it is suggested:

A week be allowed after the OK for ocean to purge it's self of near shore and off shore contaminates

A
void diving in the near shore waters near the creeks and streams emptying into the ocean

After a questionable dive always wash with soap and water as soon as possible

Immediately rise the inner ear canal with appropriate anti- bacterial solution

Make a concerted effort not to ingest any water you have been diving in or have made contact.

Routinely check any cuts and scrapes for redness and swelling that may indicate infection. If persists suggest seeking medical assistance.

Monitor long term coughs and irritated throats which are often a result of contaminated water diving.

SDM
 
How about this, next time conditions look *really* decent, shoot me a PM and we'll come join you. Would be fun to meet up anyway, and having a local contact would be a huge help. It just gets frustrating to make the drive up and so rarely (for us) get in good dives there. :)

And I don't think ANYWHERE in SoCal is seeing good diving today. :wink:
When I woke up this morning, it was raining here in Malibu. It's still raining. No good diving in Malibu today :(

I'll let you know in advance when conditions start approaching epic so you appreciate more than just the touristy restaurants in this part of the world

---------- Post added at 10:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:30 PM ----------

... Geoff, if you can scope out the surf situation before we all head out, that would be great
I should be in town that week, so I can check out conditions and let you know the surf / viz. I'm not sure if I'll be able to dive that evening, since my brother is making a rare visit to So Cal and I need to meet him for dinner with other family, and I have to drive up north that weekend for Easter.

---------- Post added at 10:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 PM ----------

In case anyone is interested in semi-organized diving in Malibu - Malibu Divers is having a fun dive on the first of each month this year. Contact them for details
 
I dive Leo Carillo quite often as a sun set dive, walk in as the sun is going down and by the time u walk out, it's completely dark. Kind of neat to see both sides of the sea life's "shift change".
I find LC more consistently nice, even though my heart belongs to Deercreek, (get it?) Deercreek is nice during the day but u can't beat the ease of LC at night.....showers and bathrooms...gotta love that.
I'm up for joining up with some folks.
 
Geoff - thanks for being our spotter! Sorry you can't dive with us on the 6th - that is, if we end up diving. We'll wait for more info.

Hi Tracy, and welcome to our burgeoning little Friday Night Malibu Dive group! :happywave:

Y'know, I've just not had good luck with Leo Carrillo. I'm sure it's just a matter of bad timing, but I've done at least a dozen dives there - not one of them good. Either mucky 1-ft vis, or high surf (both my husband and I have donated items to the Sea Gods at Leo Carrillo - a mask for me, a fin for him). I've also headed down there several times for weekend morning dive gatherings, only to stand at the top of the bluff, look down at the crashing waves, and head for breakfast. (Sound familiar, Rainer? :wink:)

I know lots of people have had great dives there, I've just been unlucky. But I'm definitely not averse to giving it another go! Maybe we can do that for our next one. I also know that Malibu Rd has some awesome sites - and hopefully others among us know how to find them so we can try those out too.

Okay well let's hope for good conditions on the 6th! And if we don't get them, we'll postpone and try again later.
 
While I have had almost zero viz at Leo C, I have to say we've been really lucky there this year. Sometimes luck is all it is....was lucky at Deercreek for almost 2 years and then horrible for like 5 dives in a row. For Leo C this year we've had Several 45 ft plus viz days, gobs of life, a grouper the size of my dive buddy that scared the %*}¥ out of me and even a whale on our last dive (about 3 weeks ago).
We would love to dive some of the other sites along Malibu and see what else is out there.
 
Now you're getting me all excited, Tracy! :bounce2: 45 ft vis - in Malibu? WOW! And you've had that this year? That's great! Let's hope we are able to experience some good vis on upcoming Fridays, after this nasty storm. Things have to settle eventually!

My husband and I are also partial to Deer Creek - we've had some of our best Malibu dives at that site. We still talk about this one dive, when the vis was awesome (not sure it was 45 ft, but close!) and we were swimming through the kelp like we were flying through a forest of trees, and we saw a herd of bat rays spiraling through the kelp stands...beautiful. Just beautiful. :) I always liked Deer Creek because you can get a little deeper than some of the other Malibu sites, and the kelp forests were always really healthy there, and not so clumped up that you couldn't swim through them.

Only problem with Deer Creek for me now is the prospect of getting up those stairs with gear on my back. I've gotta do a few more easy beach entries to see how I fare before I'm willing to try that. My surgeon recently cleared me for beach diving again (which is why I'm so eager to get started!) and I'm working hard at the gym most days to increase my strength, but I won't really know how it feels until I get out there. That's why I wanted to do Broad Beach first - I can cart my gear down in stages, then gear up and quickly enter the water without too much walking with a tank on my back.
 
While it's still 8 days away, the extended forecast is not looking too promising for next Friday. Weather.com is showing showers for both Friday and Saturday. :rain::zap: I'll keep watching, but we may have to abandon the 6th as our first Friday Night Malibu dive.

If things don't clear up, I'm going to push it out two weeks to April 20 (we're gone on the weekend of April 13-25). But we'll just see how things shake out.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

Back
Top Bottom