Southern California - The Great Escape

by Charles Stirling

Southern California offers a vast range of diving possibilities but not all of them are easily organised for a visitor on a quick trip. Their are wrecks, oil rigs, giant kelp forests, big pelagics, marine mammals, marine caves and much more to dive in S. California. There is both shore and boat diving primarily aimed at reasonably local American divers, not overseas holiday divers though they do get small numbers from all over the world.

I had limited time, I was using California as a stop over on a trip to Australia. Flying to Australia or other far east destinations via the USA will give you the advantage of baggage allowances more than 4 times that of flying the other direction and this possibility of stopping over in California. This was early April, before their main season had fully kicked off but diving goes on throughout the year. I did dives with two boats, the Great Escape and the Peace. Shore diving is popular but probably wants local knowledge and backup.

The Great Escape was located in San Pedro harbour when I used it, it has now moved to Long Beach harbour. This is the easier boat location to get to from Los Angeles airport. Its even possible to reach this harbour area using public transport instead of hiring a car, and a variety of other dive boats are also located in Long Beach. The Peace is north, in Ventura County, and a car would be essential so I won't cover it here but it goes to a different set of islands all in the same chain.

The Diving
My trip had corresponded with the tail end of an unusually bad storm, limiting our itinerary to nearby (25 miles out) Catalina Island, even though further destinations had been planned. On the "open boat" day trip (see latter) about a third of the divers were students under instruction, I didn't see much of them, the other day was a "private boat" with experienced divers. Both ended up with similar itineraries due to weather. Locals said visibility at only 5 to 10 m was so bad it wasn't worth diving, normally 20 to 30 m.

Kelp forests are fantastic! In a dense forest the bottom, at 20 - 30 m, is relatively open between the stalks, stype, held to rock by holdfasts and kept afloat by gas bladders. This makes diving the area almost like a bird must experience flying through a wood, clear at the bottom with dense canopy above and almost solid on the surface. This is NOT the same as UK kelp diving, much more grand. Special techniques are needed to manoeuvre on the surface (a "rescue" snorkeller from the boat was stationed to help teach how to get through this). Bright orange Garibaldi, and many other fish, lobster, crabs, sea hares, gorgonians, octopi, brittle stars - the marine life was good.

Not all of our dives were specifically in kelp with some on rocky ridges or boulder piles but limited variety with sea states of 3 metres+ outside our sheltered spots and rougher than this further out. The boat anchored and you get back to the boat at the end of the dive on these trips, but there were no currents so not a problem (other than kelp - I had to be shown how to get through it on the surface, not covered in BSAC training). In some of the more distant locations there might be currents, I don't know what the procedure would be then as there wasn't a working pickup boat so I presume the main boat does the pickup. It was easy entry.

Dive Boats
Dive boats here have a number of types of trip: day and multiday. These can be hunting, (either spear fishing or lobster) or just diving. They can be "open", meaning anyone can book, or private charter which could be a club or a shop. I only had 2 possible days to dive so booked an "open" 1 day trip and joined a private day trip by joining the club chartering the boat for 2nd one day's diving (cheaper than "open" in this case). Joining a club for the trip was an acceptable thing to do by the club and was accomplished by exchange of a few emails and posting payment. The boat does fill up so booking in advance is suggested, but depending on the trip you can probably get a space just a few days to weeks before. I booked in advance but paid on the day for the "open" trip.

The Great Escape lets you board the evening before your trip so you can even save on hotel costs, if you want a number of single days diving you may be able to stay aboard so that saving on hotel bills could pay for all the diving. The boat is 80 foot long, 25 foot beam, certified for 49 divers + crew and allows a maximum of 35 divers, but on some private trips may have lower maximum numbers. My open trip had 22, the private 18. Sleeping is provided in 12 double & 25 single private bunk spaces, including 6 private staterooms. These are available for use throughout the trip so between-dive kips are possible. Normally it sets off early in the morning, like 2 am, so it's on site by daybreak for the first dive. There are 4 hot showers, freshwater camera rinse tanks, camera tables, air fills, sun decks, tanks for keeping live catch and freezers for storing your game. This is not UK diving. Oh, and food, then more food! A day's food starts with breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner, evening desert and it was fabulous! A snack, that means a full meal to us Brits, meals are larger; self selection from a wide range. All included in price. Alcohol is available (extra cost, but cheap), but one alcoholic drink and that's the end of that day's diving for you.

Dive Kit
Dive kit is not provided. You are expected to turn up with 1 full cylinder, weights and all other kit you will need. This seems standard practice, dive shops hire cylinders and weights, not dive boats. I did ask and the captain said if organised beforehand he could get a dive shop to deliver a cylinder and weights to the boat. I couldn't find a shop that provided nitrox, but heard that someone might know someone who could maybe put me in contact with a supply, i.e. No nitrox. The same for tech kit, locals have it but not hire facilities and the same applied to DIN cylinders. Cylinders were "A" clamp, not convertible. Your ONE cylinder will be refilled between dives, I couldn't hire a pony.

Southern California may be bright and sunny to hot, but the sea is cool. This was thicker wetsuit or drysuit diving, not unlike the UK in spring to early summer.

The diving practice is again different from the UK. They often expect to offer between 5 and 9 dives a day with as little as 30 minutes surface interval. You chose how many and which ones you do. Once on a site you will hear a call "the gates are open now for an hour" meaning you can start a dive anytime within that hour. They support the responsible diver code meaning you are expected to know your limits, your times, your saturation and take responsibility for yourself. You are an adult, a certified diver and its your life - look after yourself - they provide the transport. If you arrive without a buddy they will help you find someone who will buddy with you, but you are also free to dive solo. Most did dive solo on my trips and most did every dive offered as non were deep (my deepest 41 m, most around 10-20 metres). They do not provide dive guides, if you want a guide you hire one from somewhere else! Safety you ask, yes it seemed as safe or safer than any UK operation, just different.

The crew (on both boats) were very knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. They were there to give you good diving and a good experience which they did. Costs were in the region of $100 per day for the trips, cylinder hire was in the region of $25 for a week.

Other Activities
Besides the diving, the location is Los Angeles / Long Beach. Non-divers could find plenty to do without going out on a dive boat.

Reference
The GREAT ESCAPE http://DiveBoat.com
Great Escape Charters Phone: 001 562 983-5626 E-Mail: CaptainTim@DiveBoat.com

The PEACE http://www.peaceboat.com
Eric Bowman Phone: 001 805 643 6309 E-Mail: info@peaceboat.com

The California Scuba Diving Open Forum, an excellent place to start: http://www.diver.net

Los Angeles County, Southern California resource pages, also very helpful with lots of information http://www.ladiver.com/socal.html

All photos by Charles Stirling.