Diving Catalina

Scuba diving around Catalina Island is absolutely awesome.

My first two open water dives were in rainy-season Costa Rica where the water was warm (75F) and the visibility was low. It was like dropping into a warm drizzle of raining sand, plenty of colorful fish but you had to stick to your dive buddy and the coral or risk being separated in the haze.

In Costa Rica, a wet suit is for coral protection, otherwise you could dive without one. In California, I was warned by a dive shop that water temperature at Catalina was around 55F and a fairly sturdy 7mm suit with hood and gloves were needed. I was thinking it would be cold, drab and murky due to the recent storms.

How nice it was to discover that the 55F water wasn't as bad as I imagined and the visibility was stunning. The colors were vivid. The water was light blue and clear to around 70-80 feet from you. Towering yellowish kelp strands hundreds of feet tall stood above the white sand floor, surrounded by huge undulating schools of little silvery fish.

It was a bit unnerving to see, for the first time, the island sea bed slanting down into the distant deep. Much different than the coral-hugging experience at Herradura Bay. Not that you couldn't zoom into a stack of coral and stare at huge ice-blue starfish amongst the urchins, but it seemed nonpurposive. The real attraction was navigating alongside the bright orange garibaldis and bass into weird little alcoves, not knowing what's over the next rock or behind the kelp curtain.

Good spearfishing too, judging by one of the crew on the Bottom Scratcher who pulled up three big kelp bass.