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Channel Island beach conditions

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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I

Insidethestorm

Active Member
Jun 3, 2011
16
1
38
I was diving at Refugio today, north of Santa Barbara, and the visibility was pretty bad. maybe 6-8 feet, lots of brownish algea. Some places cleared up to around 10, maybe even 15 feet, but thats it. Great swell, maybe 1-2 feet and 2 foot surge, but the viz sucked. Is there a thread on this forum for conditions? I hate driving 45 minutes just to find out that the water is full of boogers. Despite the conditions, I still hooked up a nice rockfish and some perch. Sigh, any day in the water, right?
 
It sucks to drive somewhere expecting nice conditions, only to find awful viz. That happened to me. I had the rare chance to dive in La Jolla (I live in Fresno). I got there only to find that the water was incredibly murky, with viz less than 2 feet.

Have you tried calling the park office number to find out the conditions beforehand? There's also this: Southern California Dive Conditions It could help in the future.
 
Ive looked at that before, and it can help, but it seems like the only good info regarding visibility is word of mouth. Considering that the viz changes daily, sometimes even hourly, I'll hear that the water is great, and by the time I get there the next day, trashed. Too bad theres not like an underwater webcam that you could check. I know that there is one for Anacapa island in the channel, but how about one for Gaviota, or Goleta Pier? That would be nice.
 
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It doesn't take long for conditions to change. I've seen 15-foot visibility turn to 4-foot visibility in less than ten minutes.

Who placed the webcams at the existing locations? It's a good idea to have them.
 
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