Santa Barbara diving with sea lion

[tom_kkh]

Hi guys,

am visiting LA soon. Am planning to have some dives with the sea lions in Santa Barbara.

As i am not familiar with the gegraphy of the area, any kind soul can point me to any dive center that does day trips or liveaboard to the santa barbara in the area of long beach?

How do I go about diving in Santa Barbara, must I make a trip to the island to find an operator?

A liveabord to Hawaii possible around long beach area?

Thanks guys for the info

 

[Rynomar]

You should look at taking a boat to the channel islands. Truth Aquatics Truth Aquatics - About Us is out of Santa Barbara and does trips to the Channel Islands regularly.

There are also several boats that go to the Channel Islands out of Ventura. The Peace and the Spectre are both nice large boats. Both the Spectre and Peace have hot tubs, which are nice for warming up.
Peace Dive Boat
Southern California Dive Trip Schedule - Reserve Your Scuba Tickets Online!

The Raptor also goes out of Ventura. It is a smaller faster boat, which can be nice for shorter days. The smaller boat can be a bit sporty crossing the channel if the water is rough however. Welcome to the Raptor Dive Charters Website located in Ventura Harbor, California

There are plenty of dive sites on the Channel Islands that have sea lions but as with most marine life they are not guaranteed but there is alot of really cool diving there. Depending on which operator you go with, you will probably go across to Annacapa or Santa Cruz.

Have fun.

 

[dwaters]

tom, from Long Beach to Santa Barbara is a two hour drive... about the same to go to SanDiego.
Better chance to dive with sea lions going to Anacapa, Santa Cruz on the boats mentioned above. Or go out of SanDiego to the Coronados Islands.
But out of the LongBeach area there are many options for boats going to Catalina (less chance for sea lions though). Nobody does a scuba trip from the main land to Hawii as the travel would be nearly a week to get there and no rec diving between. Here is a link to all of California dive boats. California Dive Boats : The Official Page Hey, there is also many shore dive options within an hour dirve.

 

[covediver]

Hi Tom:

I think you are confused by geography or at least duplicative place names, an easy thing to do in Southern California where one drives west to go north.

The sea lions rookeries you often hear about are at Santa Barbara Island, part of the Channel Island chain that parallels the Southern California coast offshore. There is also the city of Santa Barbara, two hours (probably a little more given traffic) up the coast from Long Beach. You have to go through a boat operator on the mainland to get to Santa Barbara Island. The island is unihabited except for a National Park ranger. The island is part of Channel Islands National Park.

Rynomar gave you some good advice when he suggested that you might go to Santa Barbara to get on board one of the Truth Aquatics boats going across the Santa Barbara Channel to Santa Barbara Island (yep, lots of Santa Barbaras there). I was on their boat Conception for a five day trip to San Clemente Island, Santa Barbara Island, and Anacapa Island. We dived and surface snorkelled with sealions at Santa Barbara Island for twho dives. It was great. At Anacapa, I saw three black sea bass, fish that I had not seen in 25 years of diving socal waters.

Channel Islands diving is some of the best diving in the world. But, I am biased as I once worked at Channel Islands National Park.

Truth Aquatics has the best boats and crews in Socal. I did not like the Spectre, but lots of people do like it. Peace is another good boat out of Ventura. So, check out the boat schedules and see if you can get out to Santa Barbara Island. Its worth the trip. If you can't get to Santa Barbara Island, I would suggest Anacapa Island which offers good all around diving.

There are no liveaboard dive boats that run between California and Hawaii. Just big cruise ships.

 

[tom_kkh]

Thanks guys, appreciated all the info! you guys saved my life!

Will definitely go through the options suggested.

Well some photos from my recent trip to similans as a thank you gift!

 

[fnfalman]

Tom,

Santa Barbara Island is very small and out in the open water without protection of its much larger Channel Islands sisters. A lot of dive boats would charter for a trip to go out there but have to change destination because the sea is too rough. So, what I'm saying is that you go through the dive boats and see which ones would schedule for Santa Barbara Island but don't plan on being able to make the dive with 100% certainty.

Depends on the time of the year but during the spring and summer, Anacapa Island has a small sea lion rookery and the Spectre dive boat tends to go to this dive spot.

 

[covediver]

Thanks guys, appreciated all the info! you guys saved my life!

Will definitely go through the options suggested.

Well some photos from my recent trip to similans as a thank you gift!

Glad we could provide the information. Thanks for the photos. I do hope you find California diving as enjoyable as I have.

 

[Rynomar]

Enjoy the trip. The kelp is a lot of fun to dive in.

 

[tom_kkh]

So sad, I have emailed many dive operators in LA, about 8, only one reply!!!!

It seems that my schedule 12-25 sep 09 has no boat to Santa Barbara

No sealion diving for me, i guess:depressed:

 

[fnfalman]

There's always Anacapa Island rookery, so don't worry yet.