Dive Review of Casion Point Dive Park in
The Continental USA/Avalon, CA

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Casion Point Dive Park, Aug, 2008, by Paul Jacobsen, CA, USA ( Reviewer 5 reports with 1 Helpful vote). Report 4423.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations	N/A	Food	N/A
Service and Attitude	N/A	Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation	N/A	Shore Diving
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	It’s been 2 year since I went over to the Casino Point dive park. I took the 7 AM Catalina Express over and returned at 6:45 PM with a schedule to allow me to do 3 dives at the park, plus diner in Avalon. It's been a year since I’ve dived my dry suit so I wanted to do a few dives in a controlled area to shake out my set up before I did a local dive boat trip. I didn't want to jump into the blue un-tested. This was a good plan as I had to do adjustments between dives, to adjust from a tropical set up to cold water. I had forgotten how much fun a day at the dive park is, and how convenient the whole set up is. With easy in and outs with the steps, restrooms, and plenty of other divers to chat with. Catalina Divers Supply has a fill station at the park. So I rented my tank and weights for lighter packing. The water temps were really nice by southern California standards, 64 to 66 degrees but I still hit a thermalcline at depth that was down to 58 degrees on the first dive, so I retreated to the shallower warmer water. The visibility was not as clear as it usually is and at worst was down to about 15 ft because of the currents that day. Top side there were a lot of divers and several large classes, but under the water I only encountered divers a couple of times and it didn’t feel crowded at all. There were the usual Southern California endemics fish; Garibaldi, Kelp bass, Senioritis, Opal eye, etc and swimming through the kelp is always serene and interesting. On the first dive I had a very large polarized school (200+) of top smelt following next to me for a long time, they must have thought I was a big predator. They left me when I encountered a couple of other divers going the other direction. On another dive I turned over an old urchin shell to see if there was anything inside. This caught the attention of a big Sheepshead, who decided to follow me around. He probably was expecting me to break open a few urchins for him to eat, which I’ve never done. He also had a female following him, but after about 5 minutes he figured out there was no lunch from me. Around the old swim platform I came upon a large Bat Ray in the sand, I joined him there and watched him for a few minutes. He took off once I moved ahead of him. All and all it was a fun day with 3 dives and met my objective to get set up for cold water dives in an easy environment. Even on the Catalina Express ride over I had good memories as we encountered a very large school of Dolphins mid channel. The boat slowed down and did a large 360 around them. We had a good show of them riding the bow wave and jumping over the wake, they were all around the boat. There must have been a school of bait fish, after we continued on our coarse you could see them all schooling in one area probably feeding. It looked like a Paraná feeding frenzy. So get over to the park, you won’t be disappointed by the easy diving. The disappointment is the cost now days. The whole trip ends up being about the price of taking a local day boat out to Catalina. Because of paying for Parking ($12 for the day at san Pedro). Catalina Expresses upped there price because of fuel to $66 Roundtrip. I usually get a cab to haul me from the dock in Avalon to the dive park now $12 each way if you don’t find some one to share the cab with. However, I walked back to the Avalon dock so that I could get dinner. Then toss in tank ($13 + 2 fills) and weight rentals ($7).
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Florida, California, Caribbean, Micronesia
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	no currents
Water Temp	58-66°F / 14-19°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	15-40 Ft/ 5-12 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	None
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	Schools	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals	N/A	Tropical Fish	N/A
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Casion Point Dive Park in The Continental USA/Avalon, CA

Casion Point Dive Park, Aug, 2008,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Casion Point Dive Park in
The Continental USA/Avalon, CA