Catalina Island
Catalina Island
Fellow NW Divers, I might have the opportunity to dive Catalina Island in March. Has anyone dove there before? If so, do you have any advice/suggestions on sites/dive shops that you found enjoyable and worthwhile? Thanks!
Perhaps you should be the first to post this in the new section.
http://www.nwdiveclub.com/viewforum.php?f=16
I have not dove there yet, but plan to this year, I look fwd to reading about your adventure!
http://www.nwdiveclub.com/viewforum.php?f=16
I have not dove there yet, but plan to this year, I look fwd to reading about your adventure!
Hi, my name is Keith, and I'm a Dive Addict! 
We took the ferry over from Los Angeles to Catalina. You then take a taxi from the ferry terminal to the dive park. You can get air fills there, but there's no Nitrox.
We did three dives off the dive park -- They were wonderful. The first one was the Valiant, which is a wreck which lies outside the formal boundaries of the park. You have to get approval from the harbormaster to go there, which our hosts did. It's a nice wreck, but a frighteningly long surface swim. Makes Edmonds look like child's play!
The second dive was to the south end of the park, and the SuJack wreck. This was my favorite. We dove along the rocks, amid the kelp. We found sharks and morays and tons of various fish, and when we got to the wreck, there were rays and sheep crabs and TONS of nudibranchs.
The third dive was late afternoon, and we went out to the swim platform, which is toward the north boundary of the park, to "moon walk", which is where you get up on the platform and take your fins off, and do acrobatics jumping off it. It was a great deal of fun.
We took the ferry back in the late afternoon.
A report and pictures are at
http://www.divematrix.com/showthread.ph ... t=Catalina
We did three dives off the dive park -- They were wonderful. The first one was the Valiant, which is a wreck which lies outside the formal boundaries of the park. You have to get approval from the harbormaster to go there, which our hosts did. It's a nice wreck, but a frighteningly long surface swim. Makes Edmonds look like child's play!
The second dive was to the south end of the park, and the SuJack wreck. This was my favorite. We dove along the rocks, amid the kelp. We found sharks and morays and tons of various fish, and when we got to the wreck, there were rays and sheep crabs and TONS of nudibranchs.
The third dive was late afternoon, and we went out to the swim platform, which is toward the north boundary of the park, to "moon walk", which is where you get up on the platform and take your fins off, and do acrobatics jumping off it. It was a great deal of fun.
We took the ferry back in the late afternoon.
A report and pictures are at
http://www.divematrix.com/showthread.ph ... t=Catalina
"Sometimes, when your world is going sideways, the second best thing to everything working out right, is knowing you are loved..." ljjames
Where's the dive park? Catalina is one of the places we intend to get to in the near future, and we hope to dive the bejabbers out of the whole place...
Dave
"Clearly, you weren't listening to what I'm about to say."
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"Clearly, you weren't listening to what I'm about to say."
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Check out my Internet show:
http://www.irvingszoo.com
I have been there off a liveaboard. Thankfully I forgot the name it was a so-so boat. There are a ton of boats which head over there for a day to 2 or 3 days. You definately get what you pay for on boats. Most are fairly large (~20 single tank divers) and slow. Prices for charters are insane, expect $100 for a day trip.
My one recommendation is to get to a boat dive site called "Italian Gardens" There's not much there except giant sea bass. But they are totally awesome!! Like the size of a tuna but shy and they hid behind stalks of kelp. Here's a pic I took of one:
There's alot of kelp which is gorgeous:
Expect to see lots of pesky Garibaldi. They are everywhere and quite territorial. Fortunately also quite handsome.
You can also see Morays and several species of sharks and a couple different rays with some regularity.
Definately worth diving there at least once. Most recreational sites are fairly benign. Little current, rocky shore quickly dropping to 20ft then gravelly sand very gradually sloping deeper. Vis is often >60ft. In fact if the vis were 15ft I imagine alot of boats might actually cancel, they are kinda spoiled, lol. Winds can unfortunately easily cancel boat trips. On my trips down there I have gotten to "backup" sites when the winds/swells were bad. And I've been cancelled on - that boat gave me a paypal refund in <12hrs after cancellation.
I dive with the LA "DIR" crowd alot, not sure what is popular gearwise outside that universe. From what I've seen its a 50/50 mix of 7mm wetsuits and drysuits. Surface temps are fairly warm, low-mid 60s for much of the year. Below 80ft its closer to our temps, maybe 54F.
Have fun
Richard
My one recommendation is to get to a boat dive site called "Italian Gardens" There's not much there except giant sea bass. But they are totally awesome!! Like the size of a tuna but shy and they hid behind stalks of kelp. Here's a pic I took of one:
There's alot of kelp which is gorgeous:
Expect to see lots of pesky Garibaldi. They are everywhere and quite territorial. Fortunately also quite handsome.
You can also see Morays and several species of sharks and a couple different rays with some regularity.
Definately worth diving there at least once. Most recreational sites are fairly benign. Little current, rocky shore quickly dropping to 20ft then gravelly sand very gradually sloping deeper. Vis is often >60ft. In fact if the vis were 15ft I imagine alot of boats might actually cancel, they are kinda spoiled, lol. Winds can unfortunately easily cancel boat trips. On my trips down there I have gotten to "backup" sites when the winds/swells were bad. And I've been cancelled on - that boat gave me a paypal refund in <12hrs after cancellation.
I dive with the LA "DIR" crowd alot, not sure what is popular gearwise outside that universe. From what I've seen its a 50/50 mix of 7mm wetsuits and drysuits. Surface temps are fairly warm, low-mid 60s for much of the year. Below 80ft its closer to our temps, maybe 54F.
Have fun
Richard
The dive park is just to the right of the ferry slip -- You can see the casino (from which Casino Point takes its name) as the ferry comes in. It's actually quite walkable, but not with multiple tanks . . .
"Sometimes, when your world is going sideways, the second best thing to everything working out right, is knowing you are loved..." ljjames
I'm headed to Catalina on the 15th.
My buddy Larry worked for Bob and Tina at Scuba Luv as a DM on the King Neptune. So we decided to go down with the rebreathers and rack up some serious bottom time ! I'm sure we will know every inch of the place by the time we leave.
I'll post a report when I get back.
Dave
My buddy Larry worked for Bob and Tina at Scuba Luv as a DM on the King Neptune. So we decided to go down with the rebreathers and rack up some serious bottom time ! I'm sure we will know every inch of the place by the time we leave.
I'll post a report when I get back.
Dave
Good to hear ScubaLuv is still there. I dove with them like a million years ago. Ok, so it was only the mid 90's, but, still...Dmitchell wrote:I'm headed to Catalina on the 15th.
My buddy Larry worked for Bob and Tina at Scuba Luv as a DM on the King Neptune. So we decided to go down with the rebreathers and rack up some serious bottom time ! I'm sure we will know every inch of the place by the time we leave.
I'll post a report when I get back.
Dave
Tim
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TimRenz.com creating comfortable, confident, and enthusiastic divers.
SSI Dive Control Specialist Instructor
REEF PNW AAT Level 5 Surveyor
REEF Hawaii Level 3 Surveyor
REEF Instructor - PNW Fish, PNW Advanced Fish, PNW Inverts, TWA, HAW, TEP, Cal Inverts and Algae
TimRenz.com creating comfortable, confident, and enthusiastic divers.
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I dived with ScubaLuv and the King Neptune last May ... and although I went with them on various recommendations, I wasn't at all impressed.
I had borrowed some tanks from a SoCal friend, and the first thing they told me was that if they filled those tanks on the King Neptune, they'd have to pull the Nitrox VIP stickers off of them, because the air on the boat wasn't nitrox compatible (no actual nitrox available). I rented tanks for the boat dives.
Later on I left the tanks I had borrowed at the shop for fills (they do nitrox at the shop), promising to come back and retrieve them the following day. I had told Bob I had reservations to dive the Valiant at 11 AM, and would be by at 9:30 to pick up the tanks. He assured me they'd be ready.
Next morning when I went in, the tanks were sitting right where I'd placed them the previous day. The only person in the shop was some teen-ager who said he couldn't fill tanks ... so I had to rent (air) tanks once again to do the Valiant.
He said he'd get someone in to do my fills while I was doing my Valiant dive (for those who don't know, you have to make reservations to do the dive, and go at your reserved time).
When I came back, my tanks were filled, but they were hot to the touch. By the time I got them back to the park and in the water, they'd cooled down to 2,700 psi (in a HP tank) ... and rather than the nitrox I'd requested, they were air.
I had arranged this whole trip through ScubaLuv, and had paid for most of it in advance. The overall impression I got out of the experience was that once they got your money, they didn't put much effort into giving you anything like decent service.
Catalina Island is a great place, and I absolutely love the dive park ... but based on my experiences, I really wouldn't recommend ScubaLuv to anyone ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
I had borrowed some tanks from a SoCal friend, and the first thing they told me was that if they filled those tanks on the King Neptune, they'd have to pull the Nitrox VIP stickers off of them, because the air on the boat wasn't nitrox compatible (no actual nitrox available). I rented tanks for the boat dives.
Later on I left the tanks I had borrowed at the shop for fills (they do nitrox at the shop), promising to come back and retrieve them the following day. I had told Bob I had reservations to dive the Valiant at 11 AM, and would be by at 9:30 to pick up the tanks. He assured me they'd be ready.
Next morning when I went in, the tanks were sitting right where I'd placed them the previous day. The only person in the shop was some teen-ager who said he couldn't fill tanks ... so I had to rent (air) tanks once again to do the Valiant.
He said he'd get someone in to do my fills while I was doing my Valiant dive (for those who don't know, you have to make reservations to do the dive, and go at your reserved time).
When I came back, my tanks were filled, but they were hot to the touch. By the time I got them back to the park and in the water, they'd cooled down to 2,700 psi (in a HP tank) ... and rather than the nitrox I'd requested, they were air.
I had arranged this whole trip through ScubaLuv, and had paid for most of it in advance. The overall impression I got out of the experience was that once they got your money, they didn't put much effort into giving you anything like decent service.
Catalina Island is a great place, and I absolutely love the dive park ... but based on my experiences, I really wouldn't recommend ScubaLuv to anyone ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Threats and ultimatums are never the best answer. Public humiliation via Photoshop is always better - airsix
Come visit me at http://www.nwgratefuldiver.com/
Come visit me at http://www.nwgratefuldiver.com/