Santa Cruz?

[tormat]

Are there any good places for newbies to dive from the beach in or near Santa Cruz?
Thanx!

 

[fisheater]

I don't know of any in Santa Cruz.

However, most of us NorCal divers learned at The Breakwater in Monterey.


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[Ryan Nelson]

Stay away from Santa Cruz. The bottom is sandy and murky. Lots of surfers out there who think they own the beaches, besides they make great shark bait...

Go the extra 30 miles to Monterey. Breakwater is a good place to start. I prefer lovers point but during a low tide the dive can be difficult to get to and from. Point lobos is good but they charge a fee and viz is generally worse than other Monterey spots.

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[griffon]

The Santa Cruz wharf can be a interesting dive. There is a stair down over across from stagnaroes out near the end of the wharf. Vis is anywhere from 1ft to 20 but averages a soupy 5. When the wharf is good it can a really amazing dive, the rest of the time it's just bad so you have to be willing to dive it a lot .
Only go at high tide, depth is around 2ft going out to 35 at the very end.
conditions can be weird enough though that I don't really recommend it as a good beginner spot.

We have kayaked out of Mitchell's cove a couple times but so far the diving was pretty uninspiring and that is a very long swim from shore.

Generally it's better to hit Carmel or Monterey but I have had a fair number of fun sneaks away wharf dives, but if you need to rent gear and tanks etc then just go down where you have a better chance of decent conditions.

 

[Ryan Nelson]

If you dive the warf, be sure your well aware of the LARGE seal/sea lion population. They are everywhere and very grumpy in general. It's also a good Idea to let the warf master know you'll be under the warf.

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[KRL1973]

I tried diving Capitola once and have tried free diving santa cruz a couple times. All 3 times in this area the visability was less than 5ft and not very enjoyable. I did some free diving on the San Mateo coast at pigeon point lighthouse and visability there was better at about 15ft but I only stayed in briefly and stayed close to shore as this is a white shark hotspot.

The little extra drive time to Monterey is worth it as conditions there are much better and less risky shark-wise

---------- Post added January 2nd, 2014 at 08:31 PM ----------

If you dive the warf, be sure your well aware of the LARGE seal/sea lion population. They are everywhere and very grumpy in general. It's also a good Idea to let the warf master know you'll be under the warf.


Also the fishing lines combined with poor vis pose a real hazard at the wharf. Expect a lot of jumbled broken off line accumulated down there along with who knows what kind of other debris and entanglement hazards