TOURS

Guided Shore Diving in La Jolla

OEX guided shore dives are for the adventurous certified diver looking to experience the best shore diving that Southern California has to offer.

Our guides are active and insured PADI Divemasters with a great amount of experience in local waters. We are a Five Star PADI Dive Center and the only full-service scuba dive shop in La Jolla. Our guides love what they do and it shows!

La Jolla’s Ecological Reserve has been a protected marine life refuge since the early 1970’s and the fish seem to know it! It is a “look but don’t touch” area for us humans and encompasses close to 600 acres.

We conduct our guided shore dives of La Jolla at one of two areas within La Jolla’s Ecological Reserve, La Jolla Shores (La Jolla Canyon) or La Jolla Cove.

The most common area our guides explore is La Jolla Canyon at La Jolla Shores, which is on the northern end of La Jolla’s Ecological Reserve and is a few blocks and a couple hundred yards from our dive shop. La Jolla Canyon has Pleistocene mud walls with active erosion taking place, creating an interesting habitat for burrowing invertebrates and their friends. Also, there is an upwelling from deep within La Jolla Canyon that brings nutrient-rich waters to the area and makes for a dynamic and active marine community. It is common to see Octopus, Lobster, Halibut, and Sheephead, along with different crab species. It is also a regular site to see Brandt’s Cormorants (birds!) fishing at 3ATMs (66 feet or 22 meters). La Jolla Canyon is a popular place for macro photography.

Most of your scuba dive at La Jolla Canyon will take place between 40-60 feet at the edge of the canyon at several well-known sites including Vallecitos Point, North Wall and Way North Wall.

At the Southern end of La Jolla’s Ecological Reserve is La Jolla Cove. La Jolla Cove is a shallower scuba dive with a rocky reef bottom. Most of the diving at La Jolla Cove is spent at 1ATM (33 feet or 10 meters). Because of its rocky bottom and due to its proximity to the surface, marine plant life is abundant here. Surf Grass and Eel Grass, along with Feather Boa Kelp are common. This marine plant life and surrounding rocky reef is home to many sea critters including Moray Eels, Sea Lion, Giant Black Sea Bass, Gorgonian, just to name a few.

Bathrooms and showers are located at the entrance to both sites, along with lifeguard towers. Conditions at La Jolla Shores and La Jolla Cove vary daily, from double overhead waves to little ankle biters. Entry and exit through the surf zone is a fun technique to learn and our guides are the experts!

Kayak Diving in La Jolla

Kayak diving allows you to get to dive sites that would be difficult to get to by kicking from shore. The La Jolla kelp forest is an easy paddle and there are also kayak scuba dive trips to Scripps Canyon.

Part of the fun of kayak diving is the journey to the site. Our diving kayaks are stable, fast, and they hold a mass of gear. On the way to La Jolla Kelp you can expect to see Sea Lions, Dolphin, Grey Whales in the spring, and numerous species of birds. And that’s on the way to the site! Once you’re there and underwater, expect to see multitudes of fish, more Sea Lions, and whatever else happens by that day. And if that wasn’t enough, gentle swells will push you back to shore on your paddle back.

Kayak diving is recommended for those already comfortable in California’s waters. If you’re new to the area, it may be recommended that you complete a shore dive with a guide prior to your kayak dive.

Let the fun begin! Sign up for our unique kayak dive trip today.

San Diego Boat Diving

OEX is pleased to offer amazing dive boat charters through Waterhorse Charters with their brand new custom dive boat The Humboldt!

Tons of space, cool crew, good food, and all the stuff that makes scuba diving in San Diego fun. Featured in the Sherwood, Akona, and Genesis catalogs this year, Waterhorse Charters offers daily trips with destinations including local Wreck Alley, Los Coronados Islands, Point Loma Kelp, and Scripps Canyon.

Click here to reserve your spot aboard The Humboldt

More information can be found at www.WaterhorseCharters.com

CLASSES

PADI Open Water Course

So you’ve always wanted to learn to dive- this is where it starts! The PADI Open Water Diver course is the world’s most popular scuba certification course. Millions of people have started diving as certified PADI Open Water Divers.

Learning to scuba dive requires both knowledge development (facts, principles, concepts) and motor procedures (skills, techniques, methods).

Knowledge Development Online

Complete your academic work online and show up ready to dive! After your online course work is complete, you will meet with your PADI Instructor at the pool to begin scuba diving right away.

Academics at the store

There is a DVD to watch and a book with homework that will complement the DVD. This work will be done at your home and at your own pace. When this is complete, you will meet with your Instructor, turn in your homework, and have any information you didn’t understand explained to you. You will then be issued four ten-question quizzes and one fifty-question final exam on the information you’ve learned. Once that has been successfully accomplished, we meet at the pool.

Pool

There are 13 skills for you to learn in the pool before we venture out in the ocean. Usually this takes one to two sessions, depending on how comfortable and quickly you are in scuba gear. The pool is a great introduction to learning scuba and a safe way to get you ready to venture out in to the ocean.

Ocean

There are four ocean dives in the Open Water course, usually conducted over two days. The skills that you learned in the pool will be practiced in the ocean. Four shore dives are included in the class but an optional boat trip for two of the four dives is highly recommended. It add to the scuba class experience and offers additional training for boat diving etiquette, important for traveling scuba divers.

Advanced Open Water

You don’t have to be “advanced” to take the PADI Advanced Open Water (AOW) Course – it’s designed so you can go straight into it after the PADI Open Water Diver course. The Advanced Open Water Diver course helps you increase your confidence and build your scuba skills so you can become more comfortable in the water. This is a great way to get more dives under your belt while continuing to learn under the supervision of your PADI instructor. This course builds on what you’ve learned and develops new capabilities by introducing you to new activities and new ways to have fun scuba diving.

The PADI Advanced Open Water Course consists of five dives called Adventure Dives. They are Underwater Navigation, Deep Diver (60ft-100ft), and three elective dives. Possibilities include Underwater Photographer, Wreck Diver, Night Diver, and Peak Performance Buoyancy, just to name a few. Each Adventure Dive counts towards the first dive of the corresponding PADI Specialty Course.

There are no written tests for the Advanced Open Water Course, only diving and a little bit of bookwork. You may complete your academic portion of the AOW Course online here.

The knowledge and skills you get in the Advanced Open Water Diver course vary with your interest and the adventures you have, but include:

Practical aspects of deep diving
Physiological effects of deeper scuba diving.
More ways to use your underwater compass
How to navigate using kick-cycles, visual landmarks and time
How to better use your dive computer and electronic Recreational Dive PlannerTM (eRDPTM)
And much, much more, depending on the Adventure Dives you choose

Prerequisites

PADI Open Water Diver, or qualifying certification from another certification agency. (Link to Open Water Course) Next, contact us and we can get you scheduled for some great San Diego diving!

The PADI Rescue Diver Course

“Challenging” and “rewarding” best describe the PADI Rescue Diver course. Building upon what you’ve already learned in your prior Scuba classes, this course expands on what you already know about how to prevent problems, and how to manage them if they occur.

The fun part about this course is rising to challenges and mastering them. Most divers find this course both demanding and rewarding, and at the end, say it’s the best course they’ve ever taken.

What you learn

Self rescue
Recognizing and managing stress in other divers
Emergency management and equipment
Rescuing panicked divers
Rescuing unresponsive divers

Gear and Academic materials needed:

The PADI Rescue Diver Crewpak
includes all materials required to complete the PADI Rescue Diver course – including a pocket mask. You’ll learn how to think like a rescue diver and preview skills you’ll practice with your PADI Instructor. Once your Rescue Dover course is complete, you can review the DVD to refresh your dive safety skills as needed. This tool box of knowledge and technique will give you the expertise to handle almost any emergency situation.

Scuba equipment is available, if necessary, at no extra charge.

Prerequisites

15 years old
PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certification
(or have a qualifying certification from another organization)
Be trained and current for first aid and CPR within the previous two years
(we conduct these courses too.)

PADI Divemaster Program

The PADI Divemaster program is your first step in becoming a diving professional. Most of the Divemasters and Instructors at OEX came up through the ranks as students and we picked out some of the best to stick around!

During the PADI Divemaster program, you learn dive leadership skills through both classroom and independent study. You complete water skills and stamina exercises, as well as training exercises that stretch your ability to organize and solve problems as well as help others improve their scuba. You put this knowledge into action through a structured internship or series of practical training exercises.

After becoming certified as a PADI Divemaster you will be authorized to:

• Supervise both training and non-training-related activities by planning, organizing and directing dives
• Assist a PADI Instructor during the training sessions for any PADI Diver course
• Conduct the PADI Skin Diver course and PADI Discover Snorkeling program
• Conduct the PADI Discover Local Diving experience
• Conduct the PADI Scuba Review program
• If qualified as a Discover Scuba Diving Leader, independently conduct the PADI Discover Scuba Diving program.
• Earn the PADI Digital Underwater Photographer Specialty Instructor rating to be able to teach the PADI Digital Underwater Photographer specialty.
• Independently guide Open Water Diver course students on the tour portion of Open Water Diver course Training Dives 2, 3 and 4 at a ratio of two student divers per certified divemaster.
• Accompany Open Water Diver students under the indirect supervision of a PADI Instructor during:
  Surface swims to and from the entry/exit point and during navigational exercises
  When the instructor conducts a skill, such as an ascent or descent, a Divemaster can remain with other student divers (with an individual student or buddy team)
• Accompany student divers during Adventure Dives or Specialty training dives under the indirect supervision of a PADI Instructor.
• Conduct the PADI Seal Team AquaMission
• Conduct subsequent dives under an instructor’s indirect supervision for Discover Scuba Diving participants after participants have satisfactorily completed the first dive with a PADI Instructor.
• Teach Emergency First Response courses after successfully completing an Emergency First Response Instructor course.

To start your Divemaster class you’ll need the PADI Divemaster crewpak. It includes everything you’ll need to start the PADI Divemaster program. The complete set of materials includes:

• The Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving - a comprehensive overview of diving physics, physiology, and equipment.
• The Diving Knowledge Workbook – a self-study guide used in preparation for the Divemaster and Instructor exams.
• Divemaster slates
• PADI Divemaster Manual
• CD-ROM with instructor outlines for Divemaster-conducted programs (exclusive item not available for purchase separately)

Prerequisites

• 18 years old
• A PADI Advanced Open Water Diver A PADI Advanced Open Water Diver (or qualifying certification from another training organization)
• A PADI Rescue Diver A PADI Rescue Diver (or qualifying certification from another training organization)
• An Emergency First Response Primary and Secondary Care An Emergency First Response Primary and Secondary Care (or qualifying first aid and CPR training from another organization) course completion within the past 24 months.
• Have at least 20 dives to begin the course and 60 for certification
• Be fit for diving and submit a Medical Statement (PDF) signed by a physician within the last 12 months.