Diving San Diego for the 1st Time - Need Advice

[scubadada]

Dive dry. Short of planning on a single dive in mid summer you should plan on diving dry in San Diego.

Not quite that bad, I have no trouble getting in 2-4 dives in a day, especially when surface conditions are reasonably warm and not windy. For other conditions, there's my boat coat...

 

[MaxBottomtime]

On all but one of my trips to Monterey, I had temps a degree or two warmer than I had on my previous SoCal dives. Southern California varies by location. Palos Verdes, especially offshore is often five to ten degrees colder than Orange County. La Jolla is similar to Laguna Beach, but the wrecks off San Diego can have thermoclines which can be more than ten degrees colder than the surface water. I dive dry all the time now.

 

[stanky1]

No doubt that you can get cold below 40 ft in San Diego in a wetsuit. A lot depends on your style of diving and your physical condition. If you are old and just drift around while you either play with your camera or watch starfish crawl, you will notice the cold more. On the other hand, if you are in good condition and move actively during the dive you will stay warmer. I live here and have been diving in San Diego for almost 40 yrs and never owned a drysuit. Most of my wetsuits have holes in them from hunting lobsters. I have never been so cold as to want to invest in a dry suit. However, the older I get the colder the water gets. So if I already owned one and I was going deep to just tool around, yes, I'd use the drysuit.