Diving Near Disneyland

[FishDiver]

I am visiting Anaheim in early January. The family is visiting Disney, I hope to get some diving in. I will have over 100 dives logged by then.

I am open to either shore or boat dives. Can anyone recommend areas or operators?

 

[Mark Vlahos]

Since you have posted this thread in the SoCal section of the board you have probably already checked out the sticky threads for general Southern California and Catalina info. Anaheim is reasonably convienient to Laguna Beach. You will almost certainly need a rental car, unless you team up with a local buddy who can give you a lift. Frankly, if you have a complete day off and a rental car you will be able to dive from any boat or shore dive site from San Diego to Ventura. You might need to get up early and drive for a couple of hours but by doing so you have LOTS of options.

In January the air and water temps will be cold, but the visibility is usually better if it has not been screwed up by a storm. If your timing works out join the group for either a Wrinkles shore dive or a Mo2vation boat dive. If your day for diving is mid week it will be more difficult to find a boat, but there are some boats that do go out during the week. http://saintbrendan.com/database/search.htm has a pretty good listing of available boat trips. Check a month or two before your trip.

Make sure you check the Disney website for their hours of operation during your stay, it would suck to plan somthing else in the morning and arrive at the park only a couple of hours before it closes.

Mark Vlahos

 

[TrojanCatMan]

Maybe you can sweet talk Walt into letting you dive where the Sub ride use to be... I think they are hiding Nemo there in the near future

 

[Codyjp]

...The family is visiting Disney...

man, sorry to hear that... maybe you can convince them that the only available hotel is in Avalon on catalina island...

a close second would be to stay in laguna and dive from there.

 

[JDog]

I think you can dive the Pirates of the Carribean now, you just have to bring your own gear.eepwalla

 

[Empty V]

They took out the Submarine ride? What a bummer!!!

 

[TrojanCatMan]

They took out the Submarine ride? What a bummer!!!

They took it out YEARS ago... people kept showing up dressed like in your avatar... scared the little kids

 

[FishDiver]

Laguna Beach sounds like the place if I don't have the time for Catalina. Does anyone in the area offer the DIR Fundamentals class?

 

[ChrisA]

Laguna Beach sounds like the place if I don't have the time for Catalina. Does anyone in the area offer the DIR Fundamentals class?

Don't pick the exact beach untill just days before the dive. The beaches in So Cal all face in different directions. We get ocean swells comming from both the Northern Pacific and from where you live in the South. Depending on the weather 2,000 miles from California either the north or So. swell dominates. To complicate this there are off shore Islands (Catalina being one of them) that sheild some beaches some times depending on the direction of the swells. Some beaches are very calm and others attract big crowds of surfers. Surfers are a good sign that you want to dive some place else.

You can track this on-line
http://cdip.ucsd.edu/?nav=recent&sub=nowcast

You can see in the picture that right now (Fri Night) Laguna is getting some surf. Four feet is not for novice beach divers. But Palos Verdes up here in LA County is like a like, just wade in. This will change many times over the next few weeks. PV was undivable a few weeks ago and I've been to Laguna when there was just knee high waves

Another good site is this
http://www.watchthewater.org/

I would not suggest making very specific plans this early but you can decide to do a beach dive, but just put off the decision on which beach as long as you can. Decide the night before if you can.

Boats are always good, they almost never cancel due to weather and the dive park at Avalon is always good expect for a couple days a year when strong "santa anna" winds blow which are unlikely at that time of year.

 

[Codyjp]

I think you can dive the Pirates of the Carribean now, you just have to bring your own gear.eepwalla

the real black pearl is now docked to the old fuel dock down in san pedro. so you could actually dive something from the pirates of the carribean.