Santa Barbara Shore Dive for skills work?

My brother and I are coming down next month to do a Channel Islands trip, but it will be his first opportunity to dive in a drysuit (he doesn't care for the cold). I'm looking into options to get him some pool time, but I'm wondering if there might be a good spot to do a shore dive to let him work on buoyancy with the dry suit.

Obviously we'd want something relatively shallow, with an easy entry and little to no surf/surge to fight. It doesn't have to be the most amazing dive site as far as interest.

I haven't dove down there, so I'm hoping some of the local experts might offer up options.

Thanks!

I like in SB 1000 steps or Goleta Pier.

Both are walk in. Both max out at 30-40.

You can spend time in the kelp or outside.

The pier has a pipe you can follow out and back. We use to dive out with the pipe on our left and back on our left for a nice tour. You literally enter at the base of the pier find the pipe and follow it out to your turn psi.

You can google the sites.

Refugio State Beach is a nice dive, easy entry and good facilities.

MichelG:

Refugio State Beach is a nice dive, easy entry and good facilities.

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Totally forgot about Refugio!!! I did my OWD there...

Thanks guys. How tide dependant are these sites? I know more of our dive sites up here are pretty exposed and best dove at high slack. Looks like there will be a 4 ft exchange between low and high, then a 3 ft back to low in the evening.

Gachnar:

Thanks guys. How tide dependant are these sites? I know more of our dive sites up here are pretty exposed and best dove at high slack. Looks like there will be a 4 ft exchange between low and high, then a 3 ft back to low in the evening.

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Been a while since I have been there, but in my experience at Refugio, vis is always better on the high tide but it really be a show stopper, surf can pick on change of the tides (not a Monestary Beach but challenging if you have not done surf exits and entries before). In my years of diving there, I found that the best diving is the kelp bed off the west point. On the east side there are a series of ledges, not as interesting, but a shorter swim. Goleta Beach has a sand bottom except for the pipeline that runs parallel to the pier. Vis is usually pretty lousy. Isla Vista has better diving but really thick kelp. Thousand Steps, Mesa Lane, Mohawk Reef or whatever they are calling it nowadays is a great dive. Its only 200+ some odd steps, it just feels like 1000 after ascending it with all your dive gear. Arroyo Burro (Hendry's) was a good location in the past, a compromise between ease of entry and things to see from Thousand steps up at the top of Cliff Drive from Arroyo Burro. Better than Goleta, not as good as 1000 steps, but easier.

Thanks for all the advice. We ended up at Arroyo Burro and it worked for our purposes. Visibility was fairly poor, but easy entry, shallow sandy dive was perfect for him to work on his buoyancy. We went straight out, didn't really see much except kelp, though a juvy harbor seal entertained us for the second half of the dive.