Please tell me the scoop about the Channel Islands

[drbill]

Although I'm partial to my own home (Catalina), San Clemente has some excellent diving. One of my buddies says her favorite place is Pyramid Cove. I usually dive the northern end of Clemente and like it. A trip to those two islands should be a good one for both you and your son.

Dr. Bill

 

[WileEDiver]

We recently dove San Clemente and East Anacapa Islands with one of the Truth Aquatics boats ("The Vision"). By far the best site was called "Pyramid Head--North East Point".

Captain James and his crew were great as was the food.

 

[Triton]

I would also recommend truthaquatics in Santa Barbara for a liveaboard trip. I've been diving with them since 1997 and they have a great crew and really good food.

I mainly use their boat the Vision but have used their other boat Conception for trips to the southern islands. Both are great.

Here is the site for more info.

http://truthaquatics.com/aboutus.htm

I also have friends that are always using the Peace out of Ventura I think and they really like it. I haven't used them yet so can't tell you anything about them, but here is their site.

http://www.peaceboat.com

 

[DiverMK]

I'm also interested in doing a CA liveaboard, and visited the websites mentioned on this thread, and none of them seem to have the price posted. Weird, most of the other liveaboard websites (Caribbean, bahamas, etc.) seem to have their prices available on the web.

If any of you guys know, do you mind posting (or PMing me) the price per trip (3 days?) for these different operators?

Also, for scubasean, is the LDS you mentioned that's doing the Channel Islands trip, is it Wallin's by any chance? I was thinking about doing their trip to the Southern Channel Islands in October. Let me know if you're interested!

 

[kelpmermaid]

MK, a lot of the multiple day trips may done as charters by shops or clubs, so the boat owners may not set the final pricing. They may not post "open boat" charter prices so as not to compete with their charter customers.

 

[bluebanded goby]

Just to second a thought on conditions ... three out of four times I've signed up for day boats to San Clemente or Santa Barbara Island in the past year, they've gotten redirected to Catalina due to frisky conditions farther out.

But I'd put in a vote for Santa Barbara Island, for the friendly juvenile pinnipeds ...

http://www261.pair.com/inkbox/undersea/sealions.jpg

 

[JeffMandell]

I tried going to Santa Barbara last weekend and we got diverted to San Clemente again. (Very nice diving at S. Clemente, by the way). Our dive shop guys told us this has happened on every try to go to Sana Barbara this spring. Conditions are just rougher than usual. Should settle down by late summer and I'm looking forward to actually getting there on one of these tries. Meanwhile, I had a good luck experience with a bunch of sea lions off Anacapa a few months ago. A lot of fun.

 

[Arnaud]

Is there more shark activity because of the sea lions?

 

[bluebanded goby]

Arnaud asks: "Is there more shark activity because of the sea lions?"

In theory, maybe, and in fact one L.A. dive shop owner I know says SBI was the locale of his one and only great white sighting. On the other hand, there are great whites regularly seen at Catalina (I saw a post on a freediver list a few days ago by a fellow who witnessed a fairly spectacular attack on a sea lion at Farnsworth), and there was just a great-white juvenile caught at Hermosa Beach. If memory serves correctly, the main great-white attacks on people in Southern California were fatal attacks on (a) a commercial urchin diver at San Miguel Island a few years ago, (b) a pair of kayakers off Malibu, also a few years ago, and (c) a skin diver at La Jolla in the early 1960s.

As a frequent freediver, the main thing I do is to pay attention to the activity of the other marine life.