Good places for newbies @ Catalina Island

[newdiverAZ]

Hi everyone,
Was wondering if anyone had any reccomendations on hotels and boats and dive shops @ Catalina Island. We are hoping to go this coming weekend do do our open water dives



Thanks
Brian

 

[kelpmermaid]

Scuba Luv and Catalina Divers Supply. Does the shop with whom you have trained in AZ have any contacts? I'm sure this has come up before...

 

[socaldiver]

What Kelpmermaid says is quite true.

There have been a few posts in the past about Catalina diving. You may want to search the archives.

In the meantime, Casino Point on Catalina is the place to go for an easy dive for novices as well as for "advanced" divers. Plenty to see, easy entry/exits, and depths to as deep as you can handle (100+).

I suggest that you check out www.catalina.com for information on hotels. They have some terrific packages if you wait until 10/1. You can get room and transportation very reasonable since it is considered the "off season". Some of the hotels are more "diver friendly" than others. The Pavilion, Seaport Village are a couple that I would recommend.

Enjoy.

 

[PnL]

I can't say much about the dive shops/boats at Catalina but my wife and I had an awesome time last weekend! We dove the Rock Quarry and by Lion's Head to complete our OW certification and we had a blast! There was a slight current and swells but the water temp was ~65F and the visibility was ~30ft. It was a great first experience diving in the ocean. You'll love the Girabaldi and Senorita fish - they are very friendly! We also saw a bat/eagle ray, flouders, silver sides and other fish I couldn't ID, but diving through the kelp was great. Can't wait to go back.

BTW - We went on the Bottom Scratcher out of Long Beach with our LDS (Wiley's Scuba Locker). Couldn't have asked for a better crew and shipmates.

Paul

 

[PnL]

Here's another website that I've used:

Catalina Divers

HTH
Paul

 

[littlered]

If you havn't already gone on you trip, I would suggest bring a diving knife. I went to Catalina last month and got caught in the kelp. Was not a problem but I would have felt better if I had a knife along. Have fun. littlered