How to SCUBA Dive at Catalina Island

Santa Catalina Island, usually just "Catalina Island," is one of the California Channel Islands and situated 22 miles off the coast of Los Angeles. For resident Los Angelino divers as well as visiting divers, Catalina Island represents some of the best diving in Southern California. The water might be cold, but it's clear and has features like kelp forests, shipwrecks and big fish. Working with the island's dive shops make diving Catalina Island relatively simple, although there are some local hazards to beware of.

Instructions

    • 1

      Call ahead to the dive shop you want to book your dives with and ask if they have "shark billies," or pointed sticks with wrist lanyards. Blue sharks, an opportunistic feeder with a slender build and up to 13 feet in length, are known to visit the waters off Catalina Island. Blue sharks rarely attack people, but you don't want to be unprepared if a blue shark appears and becomes too curious about you. A few pokes in the snout or gills will be enough to make the shark back off.

    • 2

      Ride the ferry from Los Angeles to Catalina Island. Ferries leave from Dana Point, Long Beach and San Pedro for Avalon and Two Harbors on Catalina Island. From there, you can either walk or ride a bicycle to the dive shop you want to work with. There are no cars on Catalina Island, and therefore no taxis–although your dive shop may send a golf cart for you if you have your own heavy scuba gear in tow.

    • 3

      Rent any equipment you didn't bring with you. Traveling divers will almost certainly need to rent a wetsuit. The surface water temperature in summer is in the mid-to-high 60s Fahrenheit, and the deeper water is even colder, so a 5 mm full wetsuit is an absolute minimum. A 6.5 mm semi-drysuit is average protection for that kind of environment–and some divers prefer drysuits for Catalina Island.

    • 4

      Sign up for a pair of dives for each day you spend diving on Catalina Island, and try to take at least three examples of the island's principle features. Explore a kelp forest such as the one at Catalina's Underwater Dive Park, as well as one of the reefs. While on a reef watch out for one of Catalina's sea bass, which usually weigh-in between 300 and 500 lbs. Finally, dive the wreck of the 163 foot-long Valiant, which sank in 1930 in 110 feet of water.