Renting ALL gear for a beach dive Sunday/Monday

[lwbotha]

We are 4 students, and we want to rent ALL gear, including tanks to head of to some beach on Sunday/Monday and do a couple of dives on our own. We are thinking of going to Refugio (any other suggestions welcome - we have never been to SoCal).

We will be based in LA, so we can potentially rent the gear from anywhere between LA and SBA. Where will be able to find the cheapest gear that are still usable? We are on a very tight budget (the initial plan was to charter out to the islands )..

Any recommendations (for sites or gear) would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[merxlin]

There are a lot of shops in the area between LA and Santa Barbara you mention. You can either rent close to where you are staying, or where you want to dive. My suggestion would be to pick your dive location and rent close to there. Given the surf and weather forecast for today/tomorrow, it would be a shame to rent a bunch of gear and not be able to dive. Between the run off from the rain, and the high surf expected, I wouldn't expect great or even good conditions.

 

[Spg01]

The surf might calm down by Monday, but depending on how much rain we get it still might not be worth it. I was planning to dive most of the weekend since I have Monday off. But now I am looking for other things to keep out of trouble.

 

[iztok]

I am diving Sundiver ($95 for Sunday 3 tank dive and $95 for Monday 3 tank dive) so that might be an option instead of a shore dive.