Planning a December Cal trip

[trpplp]

We are planning a trip to Southern California the middle of Dec. Recommendations for where to dive? What to expect to see? Recommendations for dive shops to contact? We are not set on a specific location yet.

 

[merxlin]

So Cal is a BIG area. Suggestions will vary based on where you are staying as traffic and logistics vary tremendously from Santa Monica to San Diego. Have you done cold water diving before? Are you looking to do boat dives? Beach dives? Multi-day? And of course the obligatory suggestion to go Casino Point on Catalina. Give us some more details about what you are considering and we can get you some more specifics.

 

[Lopez116]

Merxlin is right. It's a big area. There's good shore diving up and down the coast. Laguna Beach is a shore diving Mecca, but expect some surf and climbing stairs in in a full 7mm suit/hood/gloves/boots with a good amount of weight. Viz is highly variable, but about 15' or so is avg that time of year.

Boat diving to Catalina is always good and the viz is generally much better. Boats leave out of San Pedro or Long Beach. Runs to the island are between 1 and 2 hours, depending on who you dive with.

As Merxlin mentioned, taking the Catalina express to Catalina and diving casino point is a good option. If I was making a family dive vacation to Southern California, I'd take the Express to Catalina, shore dive Casino Point some, sightsee and then maybe hop on a local boat out of Catalina for some of the nicest spots.

Expect coldish water, lots of kelp, garibaldi, some surge, and maybe sea lions. Do you guys have cold water diving experience? California diving is not at all like diving in the tropics.


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[lamarpaulski]

Catalina dive park has a lot of advantages IMHO. ESP for first introduction to SCal diving.

 

[Bopper]

We are planning a trip to Southern California the middle of Dec. Recommendations for where to dive? What to expect to see? Recommendations for dive shops to contact? We are not set on a specific location yet.

How long is your trip to SoCal and how much of it do you want to dedicate to diving? Is it just one shore dive that will require less than half a day or are you interested in doing something more than that?

 

[trpplp]

We are planning a full week in California and all we have planned is to dive. We haven't set a specific location yet because we weren't sure where the best spots to dive would be. We have not done any cold water diving as of yet. We are up for both shore diving and boat diving. All of our diving has been Florida and Caribbean and I have been looking into dry suit for me because I get cold easy. I just haven't decided if I should go ahead and buy one or if I could rent one to see what they are like.

 

[lamarpaulski]

A 7mm wetsuit and hood gloves booties ought to be sufficient...a cold water hood really helps. The Catalina Dive Park was outstanding last year in early Dec (I was in 5mm with hood) and you have dive shop and showers and restaurants very close by plus Avalon is a cool place too...conditions are consistently good to excellent and rain or big swells usually don't affect the diving. Lots of life there esp in crevices and small caves...Heck...there are stairs and railings to help you enter and exit....about as easy as it gets...not near as rugged as beach diving on mainland..Drysuit may be adding too much complexity to new experience.

 

[beepbird]

Last year at this time I took a Florida Instructor out for a week of California diving. Our schedule was this:
Day 1 - Shaw's Cove Laguna - shore dive 1 dive
Day 2 - Charter on Selky Dive charter 6-pk boat 3 dives
Day 3 - Anacapa - Spectre boat 4 dives
Day 4 - Old Marineland - Terranea shore dive 1 dive
Day 5 - Casino Point - Catalina 2 dives
Day 6 - Montage - Laguna shore dive 1 dive
Day 7 - Woods Cove - Laguna shore dive 1 dive
Day 8 - Deadman's Reef Crescent Bay - Laguna shore dive. 1 dive

On a couple of the shore dives, (to protect their identity) (s)he got tumbled in the surf. It was a lot of diving and driving but a lot of fun.

Hope you enjoy it!

 

[SanDiegoSidemount]

I'm the sort of diver who prefers to enjoy an extended dive vacation from a "base camp" or on a liveaboard.

You can do a lot in a short time with Avalon, Catalina as your base camp. Take the Catalina Express ferry from LA and stay in a nice hotel, probably with a great rate for a stay in the off-season. You can probably dive Casino point 3-4 times before you will start to feel you've seen it all already. (Be sure to throw in a night dive at this spot, it's a great and very safe setup for night diving.) From Avalon, you can take day trips with the local dive boats and explore a good variety of Catalina sites. Catalina is a smorgasbord of SoCal diving: there's a little bit of everything there.

This is all weather permitting. If a December storm blows through, it could muck things up pretty badly for part of your stay. But it would rarely be bad weather for an extended period... good thing you'll be around for over a week.

An alternative could be a multi-day liveaboard trip. You could get out to some sites even us locals rarely see like San Clemente or other outer islands. Again, weather permitting. Try California Dive Boats : The Official Page for a big list of charter boats from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

Have a great trip. There's a lot to see down here!

 

[FM1520]

Last year at this time I took a Florida Instructor out for a week of California diving. Our schedule was this:
Day 1 - Shaw's Cove Laguna - shore dive 1 dive
Day 2 - Charter on Selky Dive charter 6-pk boat 3 dives
Day 3 - Anacapa - Spectre boat 4 dives
Day 4 - Old Marineland - Terranea shore dive 1 dive
Day 5 - Casino Point - Catalina 2 dives
Day 6 - Montage - Laguna shore dive 1 dive
Day 7 - Woods Cove - Laguna shore dive 1 dive
Day 8 - Deadman's Reef Crescent Bay - Laguna shore dive. 1 dive

On a couple of the shore dives, (to protect their identity) (s)he got tumbled in the surf. It was a lot of diving and driving but a lot of fun.

Hope you enjoy it!

nice plan, but I would want to do more dives per day especially at Casino point - long way to go for just two dives. Anacapa on the Spectre boat 4 dives - good call.