There are also several meetups (meetup.com) that gather at the Shores. I've often gone out with visiting divers, as have several others. Not as guides, or DMs, just buddies.
Here's one: Saturday Morning Dive at the Shores!
San Diego in January?
- Thread starter guyharrisonphoto
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There are also several meetups (meetup.com) that gather at the Shores. I've often gone out with visiting divers, as have several others. Not as guides, or DMs, just buddies.
Here's one: Saturday Morning Dive at the Shores!
nippurmagnum
Contributor
I did a quick 2-day dive trip to San Diego in November on the way to a Guadalupe white shark trip, and dove La Jolla Cove and also did some boat diving from the Marissa at some offshore pinaccles. FWIW, I thought the Cove dives were infinitely better than the Marissa boat dives. The Cove had seal pups playing with my dive buddy and me for about 10 minutes, and lots of lush kelp forest. The Marissa boat dives went to some rocky pinnacles that had lots of nudibranchs (which I did enjoy photographing), but not much else. The boat dives were much deeper (about 90 feet, vs. 35 feet max at the cove), had much less viz (as little as 5 feet, versus 15-20 feet at the cove), and much colder (about 55 degrees in November, vs. 65 degrees at the cove). The entry/exit at the Cove was very easy, and if you are not accustomed to diving with 7 mm wetsuits, it's good to take your time to do a buoyancy check on the beach, and adjust your weights. The Cove is a world class shore dive, and it costs you nothing more than a tank rental (assuming you have all your own gear). I did not use a flag at the Cove, but there was a very vigilant lifeguard tower that several times warned jet skiers to stay away from areas where divers were down, which I appreciated. I don't think a flag would be very workable in areas of kelp forest, as you would get entangled almost immediately. The main challenge of diving at the Cove for me was surge around the shallow rocky areas -- which on a relatively calm day was quite manageable, provided you go with the flow, rather than trying to fight the surge. Most of the seal encounter action was in less than 10 feet of water. The other challenge was walking up the beach with my weights on at the end of the dive, as you tend to sink into the wet sand which slopes up. I found it much easier to drop my weights in the sand, take off my dive gear on dry ground, and then go back for the weights, rather than straining to take everything up wet sand.
I will say that I took two tanks to the Cove thinking that I would make a full day of it, but after a very satisfying dive of nearly two hours on a 100 cu steel tank, I was ready to happily call it a day. On the Marissa, we did a two-dive charter, and I was freezing/exhausted by the end of the second dive. My dive buddy sat out the second boat dive, saying that the cold/low-viz/lack of kelp did not justify a repeat dive. If I had to do it all over again, I would do all shore diving at the Cove and La Jolla Shores, and skip the boat dive.
The only other thing I will say is that you can dive/snorkel with leopard sharks at the beach directly in front of the Marine Room restaurant. The sharks hang out right about where the waves are breaking, so it's quite shallow. I highly recommend doing that -- super easy and memorable.
I will say that I took two tanks to the Cove thinking that I would make a full day of it, but after a very satisfying dive of nearly two hours on a 100 cu steel tank, I was ready to happily call it a day. On the Marissa, we did a two-dive charter, and I was freezing/exhausted by the end of the second dive. My dive buddy sat out the second boat dive, saying that the cold/low-viz/lack of kelp did not justify a repeat dive. If I had to do it all over again, I would do all shore diving at the Cove and La Jolla Shores, and skip the boat dive.
The only other thing I will say is that you can dive/snorkel with leopard sharks at the beach directly in front of the Marine Room restaurant. The sharks hang out right about where the waves are breaking, so it's quite shallow. I highly recommend doing that -- super easy and memorable.
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