San Clemente Island
San Clemente Island is located off the coast of Los Angeles, just south of Catalina Island. Both Catalina Island and San Clemente Island are part of the Channel Islands. There are eight islands in total that make up the Channel Islands in Southern California.
San Clemente Island is owned and operated by the U.S. Navy and is used for military training exercises, specifically for U.S. Navy Seal training. This makes scuba diving around the island very limited, as the military will often close public access to the surrounding waters with little to no notice. However, this also makes scuba diving San Clemente Island a great place for scuba divers who want to view marine life without any distractions or interruptions from other people.
The waters surrounding San Clemente Island are home to over 3,000 marine animals and the island itself is covered with many different kinds of plants and trees. There is lots of underwater marine life to be discovered including: kelp forests, beautiful gorgonians, sea fans, orange Garibaldi fish when you go scuba diving around this incredible island. It can be accessed from various points from the mainland: San Pedro, Long Beach, San Diego, and other port cities.
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Dive Sites
I dove in the surrounding waters of San Clemente Island in September 2021 from a dive boat out of San Pedro harbor, south of Los Angeles. The conditions were beautiful, the weather was sunny or partly cloudy with the air temperature in the low 70s during the day. Scuba diving in the fall provides for warmer water and excellent diving conditions with the water temperature being around 69 degrees at the surface. Visibility in the water was around 30-45 feet the whole dive trip. Below are various dive sites I visited on my recent dive trip. Enjoy!
Pyramid Cove
This was the first dive site I visited at San Clemente Island. It was quite a treat to be able to scuba dive into a place that has been widely untainted by humans. At this dive site, I noticed something unique while scuba diving I had not seen before, a male and female rock wrasse swimming together over the sandy bottom. I have tried to spend time between dives identifying fish so I know what I am looking at. Being able to identify the male and female side by side was unique. There were a few large colorful sea hares which I always enjoy seeing – they have cute faces!
Another group was lucky to see six blue sharks swimming, which are now quite a rare sight in California waters. Upon our ascent, a curious seal spotted us and was swimming around for a better look at this group of divers. Sometimes seals will even blow bubbles at scuba divers to mimic the bubbles coming out of the regulator.
Pyramid Flat
There is a beautiful kelp forest at pyramid flat, with tall kelp stretching up to the surface. At this site, I spotted a large bat ray almost immediately upon descending. This bay ray was friendly as I watched him swim past multiple dive groups through the kelp forest. This kelp forest was not as dense as others, making it easy to spot the sea life. Visibility was great at this dive site, about 45 feet of clear, open water. There was much marine life in this area, including rockfish, sheepshead fish, and Garibaldi fish.
Fishhook
This site had lots of vegetation and underwater plants with a large rocky reef. There was quite a large surge when I dove here which made scuba diving tricky, and spent much time swimming hard to fight the surge. Some of the divers retired to the boat early to rest. There were many brightly colored juvenile garibaldi who often hang out close to rocks, they even look like they sparkle underwater. I spotted a giant kelpfish swimming through the reef, no kelp in sight made this guy easier to detect.
Little Flower
Did you know there are wild sea turtles in southern California?? I had no idea until I was scuba diving, looked up, and saw two moderately sized green sea turtles swimming. I was so excited and eagerly swam to alert the fellow divers I was with. One of the sea turtles looked curiously at us and swam closer for a better look at us before swimming away.
It is easy to see why this has been my favorite dive spot thus far. I saw so many large lobsters I quickly lost count. With a large rocky reef, there was much sea life at Little Flower from underwater flora to fish swimming all over, including rockfish, some large bass, and beautiful gorgonians. At one point when I was shinning my light in a crevice for a better look, a California moray eel curiously popped his head out! The fellow divers I was with were all able to take a good look at this eel who came to say hi.
Little Flower – Night Dive
I was fortunate enough to have my first night dive at Little Flower. Lobsters are nocturnal and were freely roaming about at night everywhere you could see. It was interesting to see how different a dive site can be at night versus during the day. I saw some fish sleeping between the plants, trying to hide from predators at night. At night, visibility is as far as your dive light can shine, which for me was about 10 feet.
I like the Kraken Sports NR-2000 dive light best. It produces 2000 lumens at 9 degrees, a massive amount of light. The 90 minute run time with rechargeable battery are nice features
I stayed close to the boat during this dive, being cautious of our navigation to not venture too far away. After coming up from the water, I saw many flying fish jumping above the water which was fun to see!
Fun fact that I did not know until recently: lobsters on the west coast are spiny lobster and have no claws as opposed to the more popular Maine lobsters. It was not yet lobster season at the time, but I have found they are tastier than the lobsters of the east coast. Although they can be quite tricky to catch!
Final Thoughts
Overall, scuba diving at San Clemente Island was a very memorable underwater experience that I will not forget. I had many unique experiences diving at from spotting my first ever sea turtles in Southern California, experiencing my first night dive, and watching wrasse couple swim together in unison. San Clemente Island is definitely somewhere I hope to dive again someday soon!
Have you ever gone scuba diving at San Clemente Island? I would love to hear about your experience in the comments below!