LDS recommendation for Orange County

Hello!

There is a possibility my wife and I will be going out to Laguna Niguel to visit friends and wanted to go diving there. Any local Dive shop recommendations? I need one that is dive housing friendly, and the local divemasters are familiar with things to photograph. Anything to make an extra effort to try to photograph? This will be my first time diving in the Pacific, as well as coastal to the Continental U.S.

What are conditions usually like? What type of wetsuit will I need, or is this drysuit type of temps? Any known issues?

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Lodging recs?

For your first Pacific dive, I would not do a beach dive with camera: surf entry probably will be some what interesting and secondly, the vis/subjects would be difficult for a newbe.

I would suggest a day boat to Catalina. This would give you 3-4 dives in better water. CA dive boats are taxis - they take you out, quick brief and you jump in on your own and swim back to the boat. Unless you make special arrangements (hire or dive with a local you are fairly on your own). Going out on a dive club charter may be an option for you.

The water here is now in the mid 60's. Most use a 7 mm farmer john or a dry suit. If you do not have this, for a one day dive you can rent a suit locally. There are a lot of local dive shops around, Sports Chalet is one of the larger ones.

Google California Dive Boats and see what is going out when you plan on being here.

Look at http://diver.net/bbs/ and http://www.scubadivernet.com/

You may EMail me for more details. divers@sbcglobal.net