Southern California Dive Trip - 02-09 May, 2009

See our trip pictures here and here.

Note: only club members who had paid their membership dues ($15 for the 2008-2009 academic year) were eligible to participate in the Southern CA trip.

The USU Scuba club led a dive trip to Southern California (Laguna Beach and La Jolla) for a week of scuba diving. We left immediately after the last day of finals (May 2nd-9th, 2009). Laguna Beach (our first stop) was about a 12 hour drive from Logan (see Google directions). We spent Monday and Tuesday diving around Laguna Beach, Wednesday visiting attractions and traveling, and Thursday and Friday in La Jolla. During the trip, we visited the Birch Aquarium, Sea World, and the Pacific Marine Mammal Center

Divers arrived in California with all their dive gear. Directions, carpooling information, lodging, and options for gear rental were announced via email and at club meetings before the trip. Due to the extended nature of the trip, it was cheaper to rent gear in Utah for the entire trip rather than paying California prices.

The water in Southern California was cold (~57-62°F). Everyone had appropriate thermal gear, including a thick wetsuit, gloves, boots, and a hood or hooded vest.

Club members did not need to have prior ocean or shore diving experience to come, but were expected to be involved with the group while in San Diego for local site orientations, safety instruction, etc.

Note: we were shore diving. Shore entries are more physically demanding than diving from a boat, and divers were prepared for significant physical exertion. Not every diver did every dive, and that's fine! We just wanted people to be prepared, and to have fun.

Costs were kept low to facilitate maximum participation. We stayed in a Courtyard (by Marriott) the first three nights, and a Residence Inn (also a Marriott place) the next two nights. We got reasonable rates at these places through a special connection the club had.

Here's an estimate of our costs, excluding gear rental (if needed). Some of our members may have paid more than this, depending on their specific expenditures:

Expense Approximate Cost
Travel (shared cost of gas, per person) $50-100
Lodging (shared) $100
Tank air fills $5 per dive
Food (groceries, fast food/restaurants) $90
APPROXIMATE TOTAL $275-$350

So, why would we drive so far to go diving? Well, while Utah has some nice dive sites, there are actually things to see in the ocean! We'll were diving with seals, sea lions, sharks, and sea otters; swimming with schools of fish, and seeing some of the most colorful invertebrate life in the world! Rocky reefs contain an amazing variety of living things, most of which you'd never see without heading to the ocean.

Want to know what some of our other trips have been like? We've been to Monterey twice now: once in 2008, and once in 2009.


Additional San Diego information is available at the following sites: