What to Expect Diving the Channel Islands

Since camping on Santa Cruz Island, and kayaking through the caves, I've longed to see the underwater world of the Channel Islands long before getting scuba certified. Next weekend my dream is coming true, and I'll be diving at Anacapa Right now my head is filled with hopes of being engulfed by 100 sea lions, seeing rays, basking in 40 ft visibility, and all the other experiences I've seen in videos and pictures.

But what is the run of the mill experience? What should I expect to see in terms of life, and visibility? Before diving in Monterey I got my hopes up big time watching amazing videos on YouTube, then on my first dives: 3ft visibility :crash: So I don't want to set the bar too high for Channel Islands and then walk away bummed that it didn't live up to it.

Right now I'm thinking I should just be happy as long as I get to see a garibaldi, a sheepshead, and a sea lion up close.

You will be happy for sure, chances of not seeing a garibaldi, sheepshead, and sea lion would be the exception.

It's diving so I hope the conditions are with you. Diving Anacapa I have seen a juvenile grouper which was huge and a cormorant took a fish right beside me, I have picures of their butts as they swam away because I was a slack jawed yokel watching them and forgetting I even owned a camera, never mind having it in my hand.

There is a lot of life there so have a ball.

What boat are you taking out?




Bob
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I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

The visibility I've had in the Channel Islands has ranged from blue water amazing to maybe 15 feet, but there is always a lot in the water to see. Garibaldis are almost a given, and sheephead and blacksmiths as well. There are often a LOT of nudibranchs of various species, and beautiful gorgonians. There's one site on Anacapa that is amazing for sea lions, if ocean conditions permit diving it. I have never had a boring or disappointing dive there, except one on Anacapa that was an urchin barren, and we still found nudibranchs and some amazing snails (big ones!) on that dive.

Good to know I can be excited about the dive and not worry too much about being let down I'll be diving with the Spectre. My very first boat dive, so should be a cool experience for that alone. Is there any useful website with ocean condition forecasts for the islands? Really hope the boat goes to the sea lion spot!

You are going to love it out there! A friend told me she had 25ft vis this past sunday, weekend before saw 60. So it can change quickly, as with all places.
Here is a link to sea conditions in the area.

CDIP recent nowcast socal_now

Have a great time!

---------- Post added August 27th, 2013 at 09:22 AM ----------

BTW, water temp was in the low 60s...

Anacapa is the warmest of the northern Channel Islands so seeing garibaldi and sheephead is more likely there than out at cold San Miguel (one of my favorite Channel Islands) dive destinations. It has been a while since I've dived Anacapa but be prepared for carpets of the beautiful brittle star Ophiothrix spiculata.

25ft would be the best vis I've seen, so I wouldn't mind that one bit. 60 ft would probably be enough to make me move to SoCal Low 60s for temperature sounds great, can ditch my vest for a change. Is the temp pretty consistent year round?

Bill, how do you get to San Miguel or the other islands? All the boat schedules I looked at seem to only go to Anacapa, but I'd love to visit Santa Cruz and San Miguel in the future. Since San Miguel has the massive colony of elephant seals, do you ever get a chance to see them underwater? I think I'd soil my wetsuit if one of those swam by :shocked2:

The temperature is not consistent. You're going at the warmest time of the year,Sept.
Truth Aquatics runs trips to the other islands.

The Spectre is a good boat. Well ran, and the hot tub is AWESOME!!!

That said, I am going to be a spoil sport and say that Anacapa had been disappointing to me the last two years.

I don't know what's going on but the front side of Anacapa had very little kelp forest left. I can't even call a few twigs "forest".

Probably going to see a lot of sea urchins, which is cool for like the first couple of dives and that's about it.

I think that as a cherry, you'd love the marine life because everything is bigger than life and wonderful. However, I'm a bit jaded and Anacapa's scenery just doesn't cut it for me right now.

As far as Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel go, the Peace boat tends to make multi-days run to Rosa and Miguel because those islands are way the heck out there. Very tough to make it on a day trip. Not to mention that because of the weather, there is no guarantee that one is going to make it to San Miguel.

Not to mention that the sweet dive spots at San Miguel/Santa Rosa tend to be very advanced so I would not suggest for you to attempt to go there any time soon.

Santa Cruz is an alternate destination if Anacapa is blown out. Gull Island is my favorite spot at Santa Cruz but once again, a very advanced dive site.

Ocean Safari SCUBA is a shop that tends to schedule a lot of trips to west end of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel.

Anacapa can be hit or miss depending on the sites. I've had days with lots of sea lions, the usual fish, lots of nudibrachs and maybe even a bat ray or angel shark. But I have also had days with all 3 sites being urchin barrens and we didn't see more than 10 fish in 3 dives (not counting gobies).

Be prepared for anything and just go with the attitude that it's a new dive experience. The thing about SoCal diving is it is unpredictable what you will see. In about 200+ SoCal dives I have only seen giant sea bass on about 5 dives, angel sharks or bat rays on about 15 dives, sea lions on about 20 dives (not counting the real fast flybys) and maybe twice a harbor seal. But you could also have a day where you see all those things in 3 dives. It really just depends. What you should expect to see is garibaldi, sheepheads, blacksmith, señoritas and gobies. But I'm happy if I at least see some garibaldi. This past Saturday at Catalina the only unusual things I saw in 3 dives was one ray for about 5 seconds and a 3 foot halibut that let us look at it as long as we wanted. But it was still a fun day. Enjoy.