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This
page is dedicated to Burchard Yaryan, a dive partner, my dentist,
and a friend who died in an unfortunate diving accident off
Pt. Loma which reminds us that you can never ascend too slowly. |
As
you can probably imagine it is not really easy to mark the exact
location of offshore sites without the reference of a buoy or a
GPS. Since I have not taken a GPS out with me yet to mark the coordinates
of good spots ( as I will in the future) all I can do is talk about
it and show some pictures. Southern California has perhaps some
of the best kelp beds in the world. In all the places that I have
visited there has never been a spot quite like our local kelp beds.
There are two sets of beds, one runs around the La Jolla area while
the other is around Pt. Loma. Both are good but I prefer the Pt.Loma
beds due to the unique pinnacles and shelves found along the bottom.
It's not hard to locate the kelp beds and with the help of a fish
finder or bottom mapper ( so you can find the water depth ) it makes
the task extremely easy. If your heading out of Mission Bay you
can turn left and go to the Pt. Loma beds or right to go to the
La Jolla ones. You'll find them from there. The depths of the kelp
beds can vary anywhere from 35-70+ feet ( based on my personal experience)
so if you want to go deep or shallow is totally up to you. The inner
kelp usually lies in 30- 40 feet of water and the outer kelp is
deeper around 60 feet. Another good thing about diving in the kelp
is that there is no sand to walk through on the way to the water
or no steps to climb. You just jump right in and dive. The visibility
is also about 10-20 feet better on average than the visibility you
will find shore diving. The easiest way to make a kelp dive if you're
visiting San Diego is to book a dive on one of the local
dive boats that go out. They depart daily for the Kelp Beds
and some other popular places like wreck alley. Click here
to access some photographs shot in the kelp. 
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