By Bruce Watkins
While the entirety of California offers spectacular opportunities for divers and other water enthusiasts, the San Diego area stands out among the best of the best. San Diego County is the most southern of the California counties, and is bordered by Mexico to the south and Orange and Riverside Counties to the north. San Diego is all about sun, sea, beaches, wrecks, animals, and affordable entertainment.
San Diego has nearly perfect weather. The average daily temperature is a wonderful 70° F, while average winter low is only 48° F, and the average summer high is a comfortable 77°. The area only gets about 10 inches of rain each year, making it a Mediterranean climate near the coast and nearly a desert inland. Its many picturesque beaches attract sun worshipers, and its calm waters draw sailors, boaters and divers from around the world.
Those seeking creature comforts can find gourmet and quality, affordable dining establishments throughout the San Diego area, but some of the more interesting nightclubs and restaurants are located in the Gaslamp District, near downtown and the airport, as well as in La Jolla Village. The County has a large number of prestigious colleges and universities and the combination of student culture and a thriving business community maintains both the quality and affordability of the nightlife and recreational opportunities.
For animal enthusiasts the area has one of the nation’s best collections of zoos and aquariums: Sea World, Birch Aquarium, San Diego Wild Animal Park, and the San Diego Zoo. Of course, we divers prefer to experience our animals in the wild, and this area has a lot to offer. San Diego County offers up two distinctly different reasons to dive: superb beach diving and marvelous offshore wreck diving.
Most of San Diego County sports beautiful, sandy beaches. However, this often results in a near-shore sandy bottom with the better reefs located a healthy swim from shore. The west coasts oldest marine reserve, La Jolla Cove Ecological reserve is a designated MLP (Marine Life Protected area. It abounds with very large fish populations harbor seals and sea lions are seen there on almost every dive. Sites like San Onofre, Carlsbad and San Elijo State Beaches have great offshore reefs that are accessible to divers with boats or kayaks, or those who enjoy long swims. The La Jolla Submarine Canyon, commonly referred to as Scripps Canyon, is best experienced by boat, but can be accessed after a 150-yard swim from the boarder of La Jolla Shores Beach where it meets Blacks Beach. The most popular night dive in the region is the La Jolla Canyon dive right off the beach from Kellogg Park.
Besides La Jolla Cove, many accessible beach dives may be found near La Jolla Village, where divers can find a large number of stunning beaches with great diving a short swim from shore. Sites like Children’s Pool, Boomer Beach, , Goldfish Point, and Marine Room are home to a cornucopia of marine life and are comfortable sites for beginner divers and yet have enough marine life to entertain the most advanced divers and photographers. These sites have healthy kelp beds with colorful invertebrates and fish, including dozens of species of nudibranchs, spiny lobsters and arguably the ocean’s most colorful fish—the garibaldi. Goldfish Point takes its name from these, orange largest members of the damselfish family in the world. In summer large numbers of leopard and horn sharks and guitarfish migrate close to shore to allow their offspring to be born in the area’s warm summer water. Divers and snorkelers often find these sharks in shallow water, directly beneath unsuspecting swimmers and waders.
The only difficult part about diving La Jolla sites is finding a place to park. While there are plenty of parking spaces, divers share them with swimmers, sun worshipers, and picnickers and they tend to fill up early. My advice is to arrive before 7 AM on weekends or dive the area on weekdays. However, once in the water you will find the diving relaxed and less crowded.
San Diego’s second diving experience is found a mile off Mission Bay, an area that divers call Wreck Alley. This is a group of six large, famous wrecks and handful of smaller ones, most of which were cleaned and deliberately sunk as artificial reefs intended to attract fish and wreck divers. All rest in water 70 to 100 feet deep and are in a variety of conditions—the older wrecks are beginning to collapse, while the younger wrecks are mostly intact. Visibility on the wrecks ranges from 20 to 60 feet. All have been underwater long enough to have acquired a healthy coat of encrusting invertebrates, and have attracted a variety of fish.
The El Ray was a kelp harvester sunk in 1987; although her wooden superstructure has collapsed her hull is still intact. The Ruby E was a former Coast Guard Cutter is 165 feet long and was sunk in 1989. She has a long career first in 1934 as a deterrent to “Rum runners” during prohibition, later used in anti-submarine warfare during World War II, and then as a fish processor and salvage vessel. The Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC) tower is the only true wreck in the area and was once a naval research laboratory before it collapsed. It has the best assortment of schooling fish found in Wreck Alley and in healthy numbers.
La Jolla Cove
One of the more popular San Diego beach dives is La Jolla Cove near downtown La Jolla. The entry is both picturesque and protected, and good, shallow diving may be found only a short distance from shore. The bottom near shore is rocky and is covered with a thick layer of kelp, most notably, feather boa kelp. This is a great place to snorkel since many garibaldi and kelp bass find homes among the swirling mass of kelp. Depths are mostly less than ten feet.
After one swims past the shallow rocks the bottom quickly drops to about twenty feet and very gradually drops to about forty feet. The rock bottom is most flat with ledges and rock piles. In the crevices within the rocky areas hide numerous lobsters, abalone and fish. Since La Jolla Cove is a reserve, none of these animals may be taken or disturbed, making this a great place to photograph game animals. Yes, they know they live in a reserve and you can’t touch them.
The low-profile rocky reef is covered with encrusting invertebrates--golden gorgonia, sponges, and tunicates. Also, along the rocks are found numerous nudibranchs, navanax, shrimps and crabs. This is a good place to find skates, horn sharks and leopard sharks in summer.
The surest way to encounter the broad nose Seven Gill Sharks and Soup Fin Sharks (Tope) at the La Jolla Cove Ecological Reserve is by hiring an experienced scuba or snorkel San Diego guide. They will most likely introduce you to Barney the Psycho Seal that is amorous with local dive guides.
Yukon
The HMCS Yukon is the most recent addition to Wreck Alley and its most popular. This 366-foot Canadian Mackenzie Class Destroyer was cleaned and deliberately sunk by the San Diego Oceans Foundation in 2000 as an artificial reef. Multiple holes were cut into her hull to provide access to divers, and she was intended to come to rest upright. However, she prematurely foundered and now rests on her port side. The Yukon is the most intact of the wrecks, and is one of the few designed to carry people as well as cargo, so she offers more opportunity for deep penetration and getting lost.
She sits in 105 feet of water, and on average she rises about 40 feet off the bottom. The Yukon has been underwater for over a decade and the marine life is beginning to coat the wreck in a tapestry of brilliant colors. In some areas huge, white Metridium anemones cover the superstructure and deck equipment; in other spots pink and lavender Corynactis cover the metal. Countless fish find a home within her hull.
So come to San Diego for its great beach and wreck diving, stay for the many parks and great, affordable food and recreational activities. San Diego harbor is also a gateway to the spectacular diving in the Southern Channel Islands and the islands of Northern Mexico, including Guadalupe. But, that’s a story for another time. ■
