CALIFORNIA
The waters off the coast of California are home to seals, kelp beds, great white sharks, and blue sharks.
Cold ocean currents from Alaska bathe the Golden State's rocky shores with nutrients, fueling staggering growth of deepwater corals, and seasonal kelp beds that are home to sea otters and other creatures. California is the base of Zero Bar, and all you have to do is ask us for advice where to go in this great state.
San Francisco and the Farallon Islands
You don’t need to travel to South Africa or South Australia to cage dive with great white sharks: each fall, Northern California's Farallon Islands is host to a large number of great whites who feed on sea lions there.
Daily one day trips leave the San Francisco Bay Area for the Farallons from September to November. Shark Diving in Northern California and can be easily combined with some days in San Francisco, or diving the Monterey Bay Peninsula.
Monterey Bay
Situated at the point where a cold northern current collides with a warm southern current, the result is an explosion of life; deep reefs harbor purple hydrocorals, and summer kelp beds transform the diving here into an almost religious experience with cathedrals of kelp punctuated by shafts of sunlight filtering down from above.
Great white sharks are common here, and often attack seals that live in huge colonies offshore. Point Lobos, Lover’s Point and Monastery Beach are popular dive sites.
A ZeroBar.org favorite is the Silver Prince operated by the Monterey Bay Dive Center and leaves from the Monterey Harbor for two tank dives, at sites like Stillwater Cove, etc.
Channel Islands
Southern California’s best diving is here, a one hour ferry ride off the coast of Long Beach: eep wall dives, calm coves full of summer kelp and rocky, rubbly drop offs are home to sea urchins, abalones, and octopus.
San Diego
San Diego is the departure point for Shark Divers liveboards to Isla Guadeloupe, Mexico, each fall in the northern hemisphere where great white sharks congregate to feed. See the Mexico Destination Page* for more information.
Getting there:
Major European, Asian and American serve the West Coast gateways of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Numerous domestic flights connect the rest of the country with California with many of them nonstop flights.
What to Expect:
With millions of tourists visiting each year, California is expensive, and accommodation, transportation and food are higher than the rest of the US. Contact ZeroBar.org for accommodation assistance.
Weather
California has a desert climate, with a dry, hot summer, and cool winters.
www.weather.com
Contact ZeroBar.org about the above mentioned trips for bookings, and other information.