Caves in Santa Cruz Island

[Scubaroo]

Has anyone dived the caves and caverns of Santa Cruz Island, in the Northern Channel Islands?

 

[kelpmermaid]

I think this is really a Southern question. I have heard about them, but not as a dive spot.

 

[Scubaroo]

erm, good question.... I once heard it was the Santa Barbara mountains, but I'm not really a native so I can't say...

Here's a website of a charter company that runs charters to the islands:

http://www.diveboat.com/great_scuba_diving_in_southern_california.shtml

 

[montereydivemas]

Not too sure if thats in the correct area that you are thinking of but there were some great caves under anacapa island including one where I found pieces of a broken up sailboat in the back of a cave, not to mention a family of lobsters living there as well !!

 

[kelpmermaid]

I think what I had seen was something about kayaking, like this:

http://www.sbka.org/reports/santa_cruz_caves.htm

Montereydivemas, I think I know the place you mentioned - there is a place called Sailboat Cove or Sailboat Cave - could that be it?

 

[kelpmermaid]

Captain Tim runs a nice boat, IMHO. I've only been to Santa Cruz out of Ventura, though. There are also boats from Santa Barbara that do Northern Channel Islands liveaboard trips - Truth Aquatics.

 

[Scubaroo]

I might be doing a 3 day Truth Aquatics trip in December - the schedule is a bit hazy though. Not sure where they're headed, but it's somewhere in the North Channel Islands. The instructors running the trip aren't able to teach Cavern which is my main interest though.

 

[Scubamaniac]

I am leaving for Santa Barbara today and will be diving Santa Cruz Island. This is the location with the largest known underwater cave (160ft entrance ceiling) so it should be pretty spectacular if we dive wherever the entrance is located. If not, it will certainly be nice to dive in 59 degree water compared to 46 degree water!

If I dive near any of the caves, I will certainly report back what I found. Unfortunately I did not get my underwater housing for my digital camera but this is my first dive down there so I want to just take it all in and enjoy and not have to focus on photography. Next trip I will have my housing and then I can possibly post some photos.

Cheers

 

[Scubaroo]

There is another underwater cave I would like to dive one day - Fish Rock in NSW, Australia. It's a swim through that goes under an island, you go in one side, and pop out on the other side of the island, and if you're lucky, get to meet some resident endangered grey nurse sharks on the way.

One of the local dive shops that runs charters there doesn't seem to require any overhead experience from their clients to dive it... even though it is a 120m (400ft) penetration dive.

www.fishrock.com.au/dive sites/fishrock_cave.htm