Coral Street Beach

Coral Street is probably my favorite cold water site of all time. It offers all the best of California diving. Multiple kelp forests, great rocks, pinnacles, and reefs, and lots of plant life. On bad days, interesting animals can be scarce. On good days, it looks like an animated fish identification poster. Seals will often join your dive and are generally friendly and playful. Otter sightings are common. Getting to the site is a beautiful drive along the coast until hounding to the beach. The road is parallel to the beach and you park literally a few feet from the water on a slightly elevated (about 3 feet) road on the inland edge of the beach. The beach from road to water is usually between 15 and 30 feet wide and not at all steep. Getting down from the road to the beach is extremely easy if unencumbered and not difficult even in full gear. Navigation is more important here than is initially apparent and it is best to make your first few trips here with someone familiar with the site. Going out, you're descending down one of a network of box canyons that widen and join as you get farther from shore. Coming back, if you pick the wrong canyon (a wrong turn at any of several forks), you can quickly find yourself in shallow surf headed into the rocks… Not a good place to be if the ocean picks up or you catch the odd tall wave. If you find yourself surrounded by rapidly rising terrain, resist the temptation to 'swim over it' and instead, reverse course to a place with more room and then surface to re-evaluate your location and your options to return to shore. The site can be a fantastic place for a night dive, but requires some greater than usual preparation. Make sure you have a way to identify your return path. Consider diving with a reel and using a line as a return guide. Having at least one qualified person as shore support is also a must in my opinion. The site can be fantastic for beginners and I have even brought open water classes here for dives 3 and 4. However, for independent diving, I would rate it intermediate. Night diving here is definitely only for experienced teams of advanced divers with good navigation skills.