Need some spring break tips

heading to SoCal for a few days prior to leaving on a cruise. I am more experienced than my wife, but we want to blow some bubbles before we gt on the boat. We are staying in Santa Monica. Where do you recommend we go for the day? Catalina sound fun, but not sure how to get there and what all is involved..also, what is Vets?

Vets park is the gateway shore dive leading to a "close to get to" submarine canyon that is a sandy and mucky dive. Night dives are quite nice, while day dives are sometimes too depending on your reason for diving there. Surf is usually small and managable to get into. There is a little known sand step that in certain tide positions can trip the unexpecting divers. Swim out to inline with the end of the pier and drop in at like approx 20ft. Head west and soon the canyon slope will get pretty steep. Get to your desired depth and head in a south direction. Vis is usually pretty good there. Animal life is mostly ground dwellers all kinds of crabs, plus big rock crabs (not to confused with dungeness crabs,) sheep crabs, sarcastic fringeheads, octopus, shrimp, huge angel sharks, with an occasional sea lion that love divers. If you end up going there, when you make a turn around and head north, it's easy to overshoot your entry point and get too close to the Famous Redondo Pier, so be carefull with that, but coming out of the canyon slopes and heading directly east until very shallow you'll find sand dollar beds, stingrays, halibut. Also no matter what, after the dives check out Starboard Attitude, right across from El Torito on the Redondo Pier, especially on a Saturday night!!

When does your school (Notre Dame maybe) schedule Spring Break?

Taking the ferry over to Catalina to dive Casino Point can be a fun day trip, but it would turn into a fairly long day. If you got an early start, you could do a couple of dives there. There are a number of fun non-scuba-related activities to do there.
For out-of-towners, though, I think Catalina would be better to do as an overnight or weekend-type trip.

Alternatively, you can pay to dive off of a local dive boat. Several dive boats are docked at San Pedro which isn't too far away from Santa Monica.
Vet's Park in Redondo Beach would be a possible shore dive. It would probably be best for you to do the dive with a local or hire a DM.

If you only have one day to fill, I'd recommend doing something other than diving...but that's just me.
The Getty Museum is a fun time, and it's not too far away from Santa Monica.
You could also do the Rodeo Drive/Beverly Hills tourist thing.

Hi davehartz, don't want to take away from Bubbletrubble, (hi bubble!) but if you make it to California, even if it's for one day, if you haven't dived here before and you like diving, I'd plan to dive in California if I were you, based on experience of Southern California diving. As far as getting someone to go with you when you get here on any shore dives, it's easy! First, send me a message closer to when you get here, I'll go with you!! And there's a good chance of getting a free private boat dive only minutes from Santa Monica! It happens! Last year, 2010 I met someone that lived in New York, and was coming to California on business, he told me the date, and we met up, his first California dive happen to be at night. We had a blast!!

Depending on the weather if it was your first time diving here and only had maybe one day, I would look for a day boat.
Sundiver, sundiver express, Magician, Great Escape come to mind right away although there are others.
Do you need to rent gear?
Next choice would be Catalina. It would make for a long day trip, but can be done. Better option would be to stay for one night and dive the casino park.
You can rent everything you need there and get in a couple of dives each day plus a night dive.

Take a dive boat trip to Catalina. Sign on with the Great Escape, the Sundiver, the Magician, The Sand Dollar, ad infinitum. Some of these boats may even be able to rent you gears or tell you where to go rent some.

I'll be in SoCal for the next year or so, so if you need a local tour guide I'll be your host.