Since we hadn’t done any diving since arriving in San Fran, we thought we should check for some charters – maybe something out of Oakland or Berkeley? Wayne’s research found several dive shops in the Bay area and a good one in San Carlos, south of San Fran, called Wallin’s Dive Center www.wallins.com. What they had was an upcoming huge store sale on the Saturday with great bargains. Hey I hear road trip! The incentive was the first 25 customers through the doors by 9:15am could pick up a brand new scuba tank with air for $99.00. Sounds good to us!
So we brewed our coffee, packed a breaky and headed off at 7:30 to arrive by 8:15 to get in the line up for the 9:00 am opening. We arrived and the shop had a tent set up with coffee, muffins, and fruit and we were about #4 in the line. We did purchase our tanks and also picked up 5 ml wet suits along with a few accessories. It was a great morning – load of bargains, so we were happy.
In chatting with one of the instructors he was saying that they teach the open water dives for their courses in Monterey – a mere 2 hour drive away. WOW! He said they have diving there right off the beach, next to the pier and for us he recommended a couple of spots, one along a long 900 foot pipe that extends out from the shore. Lots of good tidbits from Instructor Ned. When we asked about diving in San Fran – he shook his head and said no – the visibility in San Fran Bay is about 1 foot at the best of times and there are major currents so no one dives there, at least not recreationally. The closest is to take a charter boat to the Farallon Islands which are about 26 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge straight out into the Pacific. Anchoring there is sketchy at best and you really need to be diving from a live pick-up boat, also because the area is known for Great White Sharks.
The end result was we didn’t dive Inside the Golden Gate, we waited until we got down to Monterey.
