Short boat trips instead of beach dives?

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!

tparrent

Contributor
Messages
138
Reaction score
0
Location
Minnesota
I have been reading thrpough the various threads here and elsewhere on beach dives in SoCal and wonder if there are near shore boat alternatives. Given the descriptions of long, steep hikes to the beach, surf entries, surge conditions and rocks it seems like a boat dive would be much easier.

Does anyone run boats just offshore of the beach dives? Unfortunately, I do not have the time to spend a whole day getting to the Channel Islands very often. On the other hand, I'd dive nearly every weekend if I could have a nice, easy entry from a boat with a total trip time of 4 hours or less.

Maybe I need to buy a boat and then go looking for buddies :D
 
If you buy a boat, you won't have to look for buddies. They will come oozing out of the woodwork :)

Have you hooked up with the Wrinkles dive folks? Sounds as though they are shore diving successfully, and there's a group of them.
 
There are a variety of 6 pack boats around. I've also got GPS cooordinates for a bunch of artificial reefs in Santa Moncia Bay.
 
There are a few boats out of Mission Bay in San Diego that make runs to Wreck Alley and the local kelp beds off Pt Loma. The 2 tank trips would fit your time constraint. As a point of reference, check out the Lois Ann site for local dive site and schedule info.

Also, if you'd like to dive Catalina and don't want to blow a whole day, check out Express Divers. They have a very fast Pro 48 that runs to the Island in about 75 minutes. They normally run 2 tank trips in morning and afternoon during summer weekends. They're about 6 hour trips.
 
Express Divers sounds like a real possibility. Long Beach is quite a drive from Simi Valley but it shouldn't be bad at 5 AM.

I've never been to Catalina so I'll definitely give them a try. Thanks.

GPS coordinates in Santa Monica Bay sounds like a perfect excuse to buy a divable sailboat and keep it in Oxnard :)
 
That's what I did, but depending on where you live, getting there, launching, diving, getting back, still takes more than 4 hrs usually. Depends on how far you have to drive and launch.

tparrent:
Maybe I need to buy a boat and then go looking for buddies :D
 
DEEPASCENTDIVING.COM

They hae a custom 32ft Radon with Twin 7.4l Mercs on it...They are right out of Marina del Rey...They can fill high pressure and nitrox..

Great Local Dive boat for the close spots...

They also have a head,galley, and shower..


there number is 310-313-3920
 
tparrent:
EGPS coordinates in Santa Monica Bay sounds like a perfect excuse to buy a divable sailboat and keep it in Oxnard :)

Just how diveable a sailboat may be can be questionable. I've done some dives from mine. And, we've even been able to get back aboard using the boarding ladder. However, it is tricky. The problem is that sailboat hulls are generally quite round, which makes using a boarding ladder an exciting proposition at best.
 
Hi,

You might try the Sunfish. www.socaldive.com

We are excepting reservations for mainland shore dives. There are alot of sites that have off shore rocky reefs and kelpbeds that are spectacular.

And we are in Oxnard!:wink:

Rick
 
when i dive off my friends sailboat i take me gear off and tie it to the boat before i crawl up the ladder then hoist it up the side. if you want to be really cool you will use the boom as a hoist to pull the stuff up. it is a pain in the @#@ though.
 

Back
Top Bottom