LA - Marineland

I first came to this site over six years ago when goats roamed freely, remnants of the old Marineland park buildings were still around, and it was much more rugged and natural. I returned last weekend to meet a bunch of nice divers from the Dive Vets group out of Redondo beach. Well, it has changed a bit. A new resort and golf courses have now replaced the more natural landscape but the good news is the resort is lovely and friendly to divers allowing full access to bathrooms, a paved trail to the cove and a public parking area. The cove at the bottom of the path is also a lively place to bring bubble watchers. As for the trip down to the cove, it is very long with steps galore. After you get to the cove then you have some boulders to get over and at times surf can make this down right dangerous so pick a calm day a observe the conditions from above. Once in the water you can surface swim or descend and go to the edge of the kelp bed following a heading of 120 to one of two sites called 120 reef. You can also enter to the right at the point but that is a killer IMHO. Expect anywhere from 3 to 15 feet if viz in general. The kelp is lovely and nudibranchs are plentiful as well as all of the other normal SoCal critters like crabs, lobster, sun stars, sea stars and geribaldis and sometimes seals and sea lions. I always sea pods of dolphin jumping beyond the kelp beds on the surface and bat rays and sharks have also been sited regularly but not by me yet. I think it is as close as one can get to diving Catalina Island from the shore in LA. The real hard part of this dive is the trip back up to the parking lot after the dive! Enjoy but take it slow and stop and rest if you need to.