Hello everyone. I have been diving for 10 years and my girlfriend just got certified last summer in Bonaire (absolutely amazing). We will be in LA in February from Atlanta and I thought, "How can we go all the way to the Pacific Coast and not get at least one dive in?" We have never been to LA nor have we dove on the West Coast. We will just have a day for diving so are there any recommendation on a trip to say Catalina vs. local/shore dives?
Shore/beach diving is a lot of work in SoCal and frankly down right dangerous for people who aren't used to wearing heavy wetsuits with lots of lead and newbies like your girlfriend. Do a boat dive: it's convenient and less hassle.
Any dive shop recommendations? I keep finding lots of boat charters, not dive shops that rent gear too.
Depends on where you plan on staying, we can recommend dive shops. Some boat charters also rent gears. Also, if you were to do a boat dive and it's already chartered by a dive shop instead of open boat, you can rent gears from that dive shop as well. Some boats do have gears for rent too. Let us know what your final plans are and we can give you more solid recommendations.
Is it uncommon to have guided dives? I am used to diving the Caribbean and Hawaii.
Yes, it's uncommon but not unheard of. You can request for dive guide and pay extra for said service. However, if you let us know what day in advance, maybe one or two of us can join you and save you the dive guide cost.
If we did a day of shore diving, where should we rent gear from? Is there a site that shows where we can shore dive? I'm really interested in seeing some kelp and Garibaldi... is that a definite?
Thank you so much for your help!
You can google search and you will see lots of recommendations for shore diving. However as I've said above, shore diving could be quite rough to down right dangerous to people not used to it. It's not like wading into a still watered tropical beach.
Probably the easiest shore dive would be down at Laguna Beach at Shaw's Cove/Fisherman Cove/Diver's Cove. Laguna Sea Sport is close by
Laguna Sea Sports | Beach Cities Scuba Centers – Your premier Orange County Scuba Diving experience and can rent you gears, but you'd still have to hump your gears a good way down to the beach and then back up, then down & up again if you were to want to do multiple dives.
My recommendation is to do a boat dive to Catalina Island. It's convenient and you get to go to multiple sites.
You can always go to the city of Avalon on Catalina and dive at the Casino Point dive park. You can take the Catalina Express over and rent all your gears at either ScubaLuv or Catalina Divers Supply then do a very easy shore dive at the Point. But then that's all you'd do. Then you have to worry about food & drinks (the closest burger joint doesn't open during off season), and what to do with all your gears while you go off for lunch.
On the dive boat, snacks/drinks/food are right there at your fingertips.
Let me know when in February and I'll see if I can play the tour guide for you.