Our Homecoming

I was looking forward to coming home—born and raised in Los Angeles, I lived several of my early adult years in the San Diego area.  However, it had been quite a while since I spent any significant time in Southern California, so I made sure to block off my calendar and reserve ample time for visiting family and old friends.  After spending several days in Los Angeles catching up—and putting on what felt like 5 lbs of weight due to home cooking—I headed southeast to the suburbs and then to San Diego to catch up with old friends, eventually meeting up with my wife to end the trip encountering leopard sharks in La Jolla Cove.

I’m extremely familiar with the Southern California seas, as you might imagine.  I first learned to dive 25 years ago in Coronado.  I spent plenty of time making a fool out of myself on surfboards in Malibu, San Onofre, and La Jolla (okay, maybe I’m not that bad).  I spent countless hours performing amphibious landings on the beaches of Camp Pendleton while in the Marine Corps.  And San Diego is the only place I have ever encountered a great white shark natively in the open—my trip to Guadalupe Island doesn’t count.  I last saw a leopard shark over 20 years ago in the kelp forests off La Jolla, so I was looking forward to visiting one last old friend, this time from the comfort of the shore.

Getting to the leopard sharks is quite easy.  The area surrounding the cove is a community of houses with plenty of street parking for the crowds of surfers, beachgoers, and divers/snorkelers.  Next, you head down to the Marine Room where there is a beach access path to the left of the restaurant.  Don’t be surprised if you encounter several friendly people along the way wanting to chat.  In case you get lost—or want to get a reading on visibility, conditions, shark activity, etc.—everyone is extremely sociable and willing to help you out.  Once you reach the beach you have three location options to view the sharks:

1. The shallow beach in front of the Marine Room – Depending on the day, the density of the leopard sharks is best immediately to the right or left of the restaurant, or directly in front.  Either way, you don’t have to go beyond chest deep in the sandy waters to get plenty of action.  Expect this area to get rather full of people though, especially on weekends.

2. Snorkel about 100-200 meters to the left of the Marine Room in front of the sea wall – This is where the grass and kelp forest begins.  Depending on visibility, you can see large amounts of leopard sharks—and if you’re lucky, tope sharks—swimming in between the grass and kelp.

3. Snorkel 500+ meters to the left of the Marine Room into the second cove – If you keep swimming south past the seawall, you will see a secondary cove with a huge water pipe embedded in the cliff.  Swim to the rocky shore to see hundreds of leopard shard wading in knee-to-waist deep water.  Few people make their way out to this area, except for the kayakers on tours who approach the cove.  We spent hours at this location daily feeling the sensation and tranquility of having hundreds of leopard sharks all to ourselves.

The beauty of this kind of trip is that you don’t need a guide, which means you can get to the shore at your leisure and not have to worry about someone else’s schedule.  It’s about as relaxing and pressure-free as you can get.  While the surf can get sporty at times, there is little current to deal with, even for an intermediate swimmer/snorkeler.  I wear a 3mm wetsuit since I usually spend hours at a time in the water.  It’s the Pacific Ocean, so the water can get very chilly on some days, so dress appropriately depending on your tolerance level for cold water.

We spent 9 total days with the leopard sharks, enjoying every single minute.  The highlight of the trip was encountering over two dozen tope sharks swimming alongside dozens of leopard sharks in the grass forest.  Fortunately, visibility was decent that day, so we got to enjoy the show even though it wasn’t as photo and video friendly as desired.  Unfortunately, we had several days where the visibility was terrible.  However, getting to enjoy hundreds of sharks a day quickly erased any negative feelings about the conditions.

Note: I haven’t quite figured out how to read for the best visibility.  I observed that the best conditions occurred on the back end of high tide, about 1-2 hours after peak.  Of course, that also depended on whether the surf was strong and stirring up sediment.  If you can figure it out, please send me a note.

Since I’m from Southern California, the takeaway from my trip is likely different from someone who is not from the area. Home cooking and reliving the beauty and amazing weather of San Diego was food for my soul.  Scheduling the encounters at my own cadence and spending time with my people was the epitome of relaxation.  Enjoying the presence of hundreds of sharks—often times to ourselves—is the ultimate therapeutic session.  One thing’s for certain; I learned my lesson about waiting too long to visit home—a mistake I don’t plan to make again. CaaS

Check out these photos from our trip:

Check out these videos from our trip on our YouTube channel: