SoCal Freediving
Freediver in a Southern California kelp forest

La Jolla · Point Loma · the kelp

The one you can reach from the beach.

San Diego is the outlier: the best of it is close in, and a good deal of it needs no boat at all.

La Jolla and Point Loma hold real kelp forest within swimming distance of the sand, which makes San Diego the easiest place to put someone in the water for the first time.

That also changes what a boat is for down here. It is not access — it is getting past the crowded, shallow, well-known spots to water that most people never see.

Starting points

What we’d run here

These are guesses. Tell us we’re wrong.

Guided freedive trips

Kelp beds, drop-offs and quiet coves in small groups. For divers who already have the training and want better water than the mainland gives them.

Learning to freedive

Most people who want to try this don’t need a certification — they need someone in the water with them the first few times. Breath-hold basics, equalization, and how not to scare yourself.

Snorkeling trips

No certification, no depth, no pressure — just clear water and calm coves. The easiest way to show somebody why you keep going back.

Boat excursions

Not everyone wants to get in the water, and that’s fine. Time on the channel, the island from the water, and a good reason to be out there.

Two freedivers descending between towering kelp stipes in open water

The adventurous one

Untouched water

Outside the reserve line: the canyon edge, the offshore kelp, and the bank runs that need a boat and a forecast. Weather-dependent, exposed, and not a first trip. This is the part a boat actually unlocks.

Two wetsuited freedivers descending through a kelp forest

The one we’re building toward

Spearfishing

This one we’re building toward rather than offering today. When it happens it’ll be its own trip — not a speargun bolted onto a snorkel day — and it’ll stay well outside the protected areas. If it’s the reason you’d come out, say so. It moves up the list.

The water itself

Seven places along the La Jolla headland

A short coastline with a submarine canyon running into it, which is why the water here behaves nothing like the rest of the county. Marks from the USGS place-name file; descriptions from CDFW, the City of San Diego and NOAA’s Coast Pilot.

La Jolla Shores 1 La Jolla Cove 2 Seal Rock 3 Nicholson Point 4 Big Rock Reef 5 Bird Rock 6 False Point 7 5 nm

Coastline: California Dept of Fish and Wildlife (ds582) and Natural Earth / © OpenStreetMap contributors. Place names: USGS GNIS. Site descriptions: City of San Diego, CDFW, City of San Diego / California Coastal Commission, NOAA Office of Coast Survey. Pins are place locations, not drop points.

Tap the ones you want to dive. We will build the schedule around whatever gets asked for most.

  • What the charts say
    • La Jolla Shores is a sandy beach roughly a mile long, and in summer its waves are usually the gentlest of all San Diego beaches. City of San Diego
    • The beach runs about one mile, bounded to the north by Scripps Pier at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. City of San Diego
    • The La Jolla and Scripps submarine canyons offshore have steep walls that drop from 70 to 900 feet. CDFW
  • What the charts say
    • La Jolla Cove is a very small, north-facing beach tucked between sandstone cliffs, with small summer surf. City of San Diego
    • Water visibility at the Cove can sometimes exceed 30 feet. City of San Diego
    • Leopard sharks, which can reach about six feet, gather in massive numbers in the Cove each summer and fall in shallow water. CDFW
  • What the charts say
  • What the charts say
    • Big Rock is identified by the state as a surf spot for experienced surfers, unlike the beginner breaks further south. CDFW
  • What the charts say
    • Bird Rock is named by the state as one of the best low-tide tidepool spots on the South La Jolla coast. CDFW
    • It sits within an area protecting more than five square miles of dense kelp forest, rocky and sandy intertidal, and rocky reef, running from shore to 180 feet. CDFW
  • What the charts say
    • False Point, also called Pacific Beach Point, is one of the best low-tide tidepool spots on the South La Jolla coast. CDFW
    • False Point is the south end of the La Jolla headland, whose north end is Point La Jolla, where rock cliffs with caves rise abruptly from the water to 80 feet. NOAA Office of Coast Survey

Nothing picked yet.

Before the boat

What would you actually get on a boat for around San Diego?

Every answer is optional except the email. Interest on its own doesn’t decide anything — what a day is worth and how often you’d go is what decides the boat.