Tuesday October 20, 2009 my wife Laurie and I arrived on Catalina Island for a scuba diving vacation. We picked a perfect week to go; it was one of those weeks that re-confirm to me that October is one of the best months to dive Catalina. Most of the week the weather was perfect aside from a fog bank that rolls in and cools things down for a couple of hours, usually burned off by noon. The surface water conditions were amazing, it looked like you could water ski all the way back to the mainland and the water temperature was around 68 degrees all week long.
Our first dive was on Wednesday around 1 p.m. at the Avalon Dive Park after the fog burned off. As you can usually expect, the moment we entered the water from the convenient concrete staircase, we were met with hundreds if not thousands of fish. We were surrounded by blacksmith perch, garibaldi, sheepshead, senioritas and kelp bass and flanking that congregation of fish was an enormous school of Anchovies, smelt and spanish mackerel. The water clarity allowed 50 plus feet of visibility but we could only see about 20 feet because all of the fish were in the way. We did a very relaxed slow dive and did not venture too far from our entry / exit point as this was our first dive in about 7 months, but the sea life that we saw beats most any dive that I have done anywhere in the world. We saw a school of barracuda cruise by and some bonito and we saw all the little cool creatures like blue banded gobies, sea hares that were about 18 inches long, lobster, shrimp, moray eels, brittle stars and so many more. The kelp forest is really an amazing ecosystem that is so loaded with sea life and ambient beauty that I just can’t get enough of it.
We had a wonderful dive trip, and we enjoyed going on walks around Avalon and we visited friends and did a little fishing, lobster hunting and some great people watching. Catalina Island is truly a great little vacation getaway that is not too far and relatively inexpensive.
Tim Sanchez
Tags: Avalon dive park, catalina diving, catalina island, Catalina scuba, dive catalina, scuba diving, scuba diving vacation, scuba trip review
