Hi everyone! I'm planning a 3 person, 1 day (2 to 3 tank) dive trip to Catalina for early Oct. We'll be driving up from Orange County. We dove Channel Islands about 2 yrs ago and had a lot of fun in the kelp.
We each have 20-30 dives and are very comfortable in the water. Our trips have usually had a DM, but we've done a few boat dives without one (including Channel Islands) and it wasn't a problem. We'll need to rent equipment, other than mask & fins.
I'm looking for suggestions on how to plan this trip. It looks like basically there are 2 options;
Option 1 - Ferry from Long Beach to Avalon and then dive with one of the shops there. I'm assuming these are shore dives then, not boat dives? This option seems like a couple of extra steps, plus about $250 for 3 round trip ferry trips.
Option 2 - Board a dive boat in Long Beach. This seems like the simplest option, but I'm not sure if we'll see the same things as diving directly off Catalina.
For option 2, does anyone have recommendations for a boat? I found info on Sundiver. Some older threads here list a few other boats that appear to have gone out of business, including Magician, Bottom Scratcher, Great Escape.
Thanks!
We each have 20-30 dives and are very comfortable in the water. Our trips have usually had a DM, but we've done a few boat dives without one (including Channel Islands) and it wasn't a problem. We'll need to rent equipment, other than mask & fins.
I'm looking for suggestions on how to plan this trip. It looks like basically there are 2 options;
Option 1 - Ferry from Long Beach to Avalon and then dive with one of the shops there. I'm assuming these are shore dives then, not boat dives? This option seems like a couple of extra steps, plus about $250 for 3 round trip ferry trips.
Option 2 - Board a dive boat in Long Beach. This seems like the simplest option, but I'm not sure if we'll see the same things as diving directly off Catalina.
For option 2, does anyone have recommendations for a boat? I found info on Sundiver. Some older threads here list a few other boats that appear to have gone out of business, including Magician, Bottom Scratcher, Great Escape.
Thanks!
