La Jolla Shores... Why So Great?

[TerryTat]

I Have To Be Frank With You.. I Have Dove Here A Half A Dozen Times.
I Have Read Many Posts Stating That Its A Great Place To Dive. I Honestly Havent Seen Anything Worth Going Back For. I Prefer Diving In Laguna.. Shaws/crescent Cove.

Please Fill Me In On What I'm Missing And How I Can Find It..

Thanks In Advance..

Ter

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Check out Terry Strait's (Divinman) reports in the monthly dive report section. You have to go into the canyon to see most of the life. The shores is an easy, albeit long swim, but that gives you plenty of time to decompress in the shallows on your way back in. There are nudis not found in abundance elsewhere in SoCal, Batrays, Leopard sharks, octopus and crabs. It really is an oasis in the middle of a sandy desert.

 

[ShakaZulu]

I have to agree, not much to see at first, and not very scenic, except for the wall drop-off, but if you slow it down, that wall comes to life, especially at night. Critters all over the place, you just have to look for them. A bit deeper and you have some nice structure that looks eary in combination with your narcosis. A little bit to the left and you have the Marine Room, shallow dive with lots of sea grass and fish? A bit west and you have La Jolla Cove that offers kelp beds and more structure. A little north and you have the south wall, vertical drops into the abyss where even the fish looks like they are suffering from narcosis. All in all a wonderful place with lots of diversity......and I haven't even mentioned Scripps Canyon.

http://www.scubapost.net/forums/Mr_Fringehead/San_Diego_Diving/ScrippsandLJS/

 

[TerryTat]

Thanks For The Info... Please Keep Em Coming!!!!

 

[TerryTat]

Check out Terry Strait's (Divinman) reports in the monthly dive report section. You have to go into the canyon to see most of the life. The shores is an easy, albeit long swim, but that gives you plenty of time to decompress in the shallows on your way back in. There are nudis not found in abundance elsewhere in SoCal, Batrays, Leopard sharks, octopus and crabs. It really is an oasis in the middle of a sandy desert.

THANK YOU.. WHERE CAN I FIND THE MONTHLY DIVE REPORT SECTION?
AND WHERE DO YOU ENTER THE SURF?

 

[Roughwaterjohn]

Terry,

I might also suggest that you post a request to dive with some of the locals who do the Shores frequently. It really takes a few times before you learn to see what is really out there and how to find it. Once you're shown, you realize all the things you've been missing.

The dive reports are at the top of this forum, listed as the June (or whatever month) dive report thread, see http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=144434
Previous months can be viewed by scrolling down to previous entries for May, April and such.

Good luck and have fun!
John A.

 

[onfloat]

Before I moved to Hawaii and even now after. It is my favorite place to dive. I miss it!! Having dove with John A. a couple of times and Terry once, they have great knowledge of the area and the local life. You can't beat Scripps Canyon. Dang, I wish I were back.

Tom

 

[wetrat]

Hey TerryTat,

I did a night dive with Divinman and California Diver to the Cabezon Cruiser that stands out as one of my best dives ever. I was buzzing for days. I got a little carried away with the report, but here's part of it:

At the lineups, we popped in our regs and floated into the abyss. Down, down, like astronauts floating through space until we found the canyon slope. A horn shark was swimming toward us and made a wide circle around us as if to avoid confrontation. We finned southeast, deeper and deeper until we hit 130 fsw and the cabezon cruiser appeared. Later I learned that Tyler could find that little wreck every time, even with his eyes closed. We poked around and checked out the HUGE sheephead trying to hide under the floorboards. After several minutes we reluctantly started back up the canyon wall. It was on the return leg of the dive that Terry and Tyler introduced me to the addiction of La Jolla Canyon. We saw several hermissenda, a beautiful navanax, and many other big juicy nudis Terry rattled off the names of but I can't remember now. We saw sarcastic fringehead, several freeswimming red octopus and some delicate little octopus babies about a half inch long. We saw several thornback rays and some of their tiny babies too. About every few feet we would see something incredible.

So, don't give up!! It's a great place to dive!

John

 

[headhunter]

I've had both great and not so great dives at The Shores.

It's all about knowing how to get to the cool stuff. If you miss that, you wind up with a long sand dive.

I even got to see a very cool wolf eel that Peter McGuinness took a picture of and put into one of the dive reports in the May '06 Monthly Dive Report thread. It has a blue irridescent color to it that is really cool!

I'm not great at finding these places by myself, but I've probably got about a 90% success rate after going out with the locals. I'm getting better at it.

Christian

 

[scubatomwetzel]

Most divers look for the large creatures.
There are usually an abundance of small creatures in the sand. They are also fun
to play with. Just be gentle.