For some years now I've been kept regularly informed that Mrs B would like to go to San Francisco. Well, the bin lids are now old enough (supposedly) to look after themselves, so in January it was decided that this was The Year that I would bite the Bullit. A little research revealed that the notorious San Fran fog is not so likely in September so we booked off the last two weeks. I was going to be allowed a few days diving, so I started looking for somewhere good to do it.
A search on the internet turned up an on-line version of a California Diving News, a monthly publication featuring, among other things, dive site reviews. Skimming through back issues one place kept turning up sites with star ratings - Catalina Island. Studying the atlas with a magnifying glass I found it - a speck in the Pacific just off Long Beach. More searching on the internet found the island's official site and links to several diving package companies. I plumped for Catalina Scuba Luv and, via the wonders of e-mail and some strange translation problems (it's true - the English and Americans are one people divided by a common language), managed to book two days diving. Only nine months to go and I would be there!
And so we fetched up on Avalon (the capital of Catalina) harbour one afternoon late in September. The water in the harbour was crystal clear, we stood on the harbour wall watching garibaldi and shoaling fish foraging among the kelp twenty feet down. I couldn't wait to get into some of that! Having to wait until the next morning though, we went for walk along the seafront shops where they seem to a good trade in tee-shirts featuring some of the less welcoming inhabitants of nearby waters. Time to practice looking like a seal - NOT!
Early next morning I was down to the dive shop to book in and pick up the kit I needed to hire. I hadn't fancied lugging all my gear around California for two weeks just for two days diving and left some of the more bulky stuff behind, that was lesson 1 - barring tanks, weights and suit I should have taken all of my own gear. This being diving of the 5-star US variety the gear was trucked down to the dock while the divers took a leisurely promenade stroll to the boat, the King Neptune, a 65' cruiser with compressor, food, drinks, camera rinse, stacks of space for kitting up and a stern platform for easy exits. Oh - and the sun was shining! We loaded our gear onto the boat and set up BC's and regs as Captain Bob set a course north west.
I buddied up with an American called Steve, a PADI trained diver whose normal diving area was Lake Michigan. We were briefed on the site, made our plan, checked kit and signals and strode in from the side. We were in 20+ metres of water and could see the bottom clearly; the kelp forest was south west and shoreward, to the north east was deep blue open ocean. Unfortunately it was another five minutes before we actually got to the bottom as I was just underweighted and had to get out to put another weight on my belt! When we did get to the bottom I double checked everything was ok and working properly and we set off for the kelp.
How can I describe diving in the giant kelp? I had read beforehand that you have to pick a clear route through it, and my buddy soon proved this true; try to push through and it will tenaciously tangle your tank and fins. It is just like a forest - earlier in our holiday we had walked through the Redwoods and being in the kelp gave me exactly the same impression; the kelp seemed to stretch up straight into the sky just like the trees in Muir Woods. Apart from being wetter the only other difference is the life - in the Redwoods there is other life around but you have look and listen very carefully to find it - down in the kelp critters are everywhere you look. Spiny lobsters are in every suitable hole, gorgonians, sea cucumbers and starfish cover the rocks and there are more kinds of fish than I can name. Garibaldi are bright orange and 'in-your-face' swimming everywhere, together with kelp bass, California sheephead, and senorita. Incredibly colourful blue-striped gobies cling to rocks making them appear to glow blue and orange. Cryptically coloured scorpionfish, lingcod and treefish lie among the rocks and on the sand, and kelp fish hide in the kelp by looking and moving just like the kelp. Silvery smelt and pacific haddock rest in huge shoals in kelp clearings, hiding from the pelagic predators lurking along the deep water edges of the forest, remember to look out to sea and you may see tuna, bonito, barracuda and who knows what!
Being a diver who likes finding a bit of life down there these were great dives. The dive highlights for me were finding a horned shark (not one of those diddy things you see on the tele being spat out by an angel shark but a 4'+ monster my buddy had just swum right over without seeing), barracuda cruising past out in the blue, and a cormorant darting around us chasing fish. Absolute number one was swimming through the shoals of smelt and haddock watching them swirl hypnotically around you.
Things were quite interesting on the surface as well. Between sites on the first day we found ourselves in an area where dolphins (pacific white-sides I think) were feeding - whichever direction you looked there were dolphins jumping breaking the waves with their fins. Also seen on the surface were sealions, harbour seals and jumping billfish (marlin).
To anyone going to California for any reason at all I can recommend diving Catalina. The diving is great, the island atmosphere is laid back and friendly, and every US diver I met there said that Catalina has absolutely the best diving in California.
California Diving News
Catlina Island Visitors page and their
Scuba page
Catalina
Scuba Luv
Alcatraz Visitors
Some critter piccys
Catalina
Conservancy Divers