Best Monterey dive shop for guided tour?

[timten]

I would recommend Seven Seas Scuba. I needed a guide for a tue morning dive, they are super friendly and accomadating. They have coffee waiting for you, and everything is super new and clean. They also have a great wash station. I would not hesitate to dive with them again. You can walk to breakwater or Hidden beach.

 

[NCadiver]

You may what to take a drysuit course along with the refresher/tour dive. The Drysuit course gets you in the pool for skills then you do the ocean dive and get your cert card and with that you can always rent a drysuit when you go to Monterey.

 

[oira79]

I used Seven Seas. Nice people, brand new equipment. We had 1 pretty good dive; seeing 3 cormorants underwater was the highlight. We decided to quit while we were ahead and didn't have a second dive. It was very expensive for one dive ($120 each, including equipment and guide), but I think that's Monterey pricing.

Now we're ready for some warm water. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Akimbo]

Another option to consider is to hire a dive guide and go off one of the boats in Monterey. That eliminates the whole beach entry/exit burden added to diving cold water and unfamiliar gear. The down-side is boats tend to go into deeper water and wetsuit compression becomes a factor, especially in a typically ill-fitting rental suit.

An alternative suggestion is use your tune-up dive to get drysuit certified. That way you can enjoy diving Northern California in the future.